


The Hunt for Ellie Arroway

by eshcaine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Benstina, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, IN SPACE!, M/M, Other, Rough Sex, Sci-Fi, Space Angels, Space Stations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:09:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 40,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eshcaine/pseuds/eshcaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Year is 3065</p>
<p>When a powerful and wealthy intergalactic tycoon named Crowley sends out drone probes to search for a convoy of lost research starships, he’s going to need a team to go out and bring back what those probes find. Sam and Dean Winchester have worked for Crowley in the past. But will they do it again this time? And what is waiting for them in the vast of space when they get there?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impala Class 7691 Chevrolet Vessel KAZ 2Y5

 

**Part 1: Impala Class 7691 Chevrolet Vessel KAZ 2Y5**

When humanity began making the push outward into the stars, we reached out like a child’s hand into the vastness of space with wonder and hesitation. But like children learning about the universe there were mistakes made. We were only human. Some ships stalled on their way to their destinations. Some crashed into asteroids or moons. Some crashed into other ships. Others had other kinds of accidents. Some were caused by men and some by the natural order of the universe. The debris and the wreckage was scattered from Mother Earth out into the New Territories and beyond. It made for good pickings for a salvage operation, and that’s what the Winchester crew did. They worked and lived on an Impala Class 7691 Chevrolet vessel. Its registration numbers were KAZ 2Y5 but Dean had the name “Baby” painted on its hull in a vintage style classic script. Basically Dean owned the ship, but was partners with his brother in the business. They found old wrecks or abandoned vessels and they harvested parts and supplies from them. Then they would take it to Bobby Singer’s space station outpost in the New Americas and sell it to him for a fair price. It kept them flying. It kept them living in space.

Their crew broke down like this: First there was Garth their COM SAT, communications satellite operator. Though there was no satellite really anymore but Dean kept the title as a nod to the original NASA space program centuries ago. Garth was an electrical engineer and he kept their com links running, their operating systems in shape as well as any other computer hardware job that needed handling. Next there was Chuck, their book man. He saw to their supply needs, kept inventory of everything on the ship that wasn’t someone’s personal belonging and he kept the financial books balanced. Then there was Benny, their weapons expert. Many times on these salvage jobs they would find a variety of weapon gear and it was his job to retrieve and repair if needed. He was also handy in a scrap fight which happened sometimes if two salvage crews were contesting over a wreck. Finally there was the new guy they had just hired on when they were at the Bṛhaspati Space colony on Europa. His name was Jimmy Novak and he was a medical doctor. Benny’s leg was deeply slashed open during one of their last jobs when some cargo shifted unexpectedly. Dean decided it was time to have someone on board who knew how to patch those things up.

Space was dangerous after all.

 Sam’s job was to ferret out lost wrecks by studying the millions of ship flight log data that was stored with various historical and navigational societies and groups. Sometimes he would map out a flight path used by space pioneers and settlers then introduce an algorithm he had written to predict where derelict ships may have drifted. He would also chart their own star course as the navigator.

Dean basically took up whatever was left to do on the ship. If something needed fixing, he’d do it. If something needed machine shopped, he’d get it done. When he had originally inherited the ship from their Dad, Dean had spent two years in dock on Titan overhauling the entire ship, its engines, its hull… all of it to suit their goals better. He was proud of his ‘Baby’ and generally acted as pilot most of the time.

Life was manageable. They turned a good profit most days. When they made sure to stay clear of certain star systems things were fairly trouble free.

It had been four Earth days and six Earth hours since leaving Bṛhaspati. Garth was at his station on the bridge. He was wearing a standard multi-pocket cotton twill jumpsuit that zipped up the front, old space marine boots and an old baseball cap. He sat slung back in his seat with his feet propped up on the console. In one hand he had a sandwich of spam, flat cheese process and actual lettuce with tomatoes. The bread was fresh baked and a soft wheat texture. He had been relishing eating it with slow appreciative bites. His other hand was tapping at a button, scrolling through transmissions in the area. Only the very wealthy could encode their space transmissions so if you sent something out any ship within receiving distance could read them. Sometimes he would find these lovely heartfelt missives between separated family members just floating out in the vast, and Garth would save them. He had begun printing them out on paper when he had it and keeping them in an old large scrapbook they had found on one of their salvages a few months back. He felt like he was preserving something fleeting but important. And it made him happy to read them, these testaments of love whispered between the stars.

There wasn’t anything like that today however. Most of the transmissions were just various ships leaving Bṛhaspati sending their co-ordinates to some of the main space buoys for navigation adjustments. He took another bite of his sandwich and smiled as he chewed, his eyes closing at how good the thing tasted.

Sam came up into the bridge. He was wearing the same jumpsuit as Garth, but he had the top half unzipped and peeled down so that he could tie the arm sleeves around his waist as if they were just pants. He had on a t-shirt and a plaid flannel shirt over that. He patted Garth on the back, and then sat at his work station on the other side of the bridge. “I can’t believe they had actual produce on Bṛhaspati. We are going to eat like kings for the next few weeks.” He flicked on the NAV AP and turned on a few other screens.

“I keep telling Dean we could put a hydroponics lab in the second largest hold. We could grow our own food and we could produce oxygen with the right plants. It would take some of the burden off our CO2 scrubbers. Chuck and I have discussed it a lot. We could make it work.”Garth, sat up as a ping sound came from one of his monitors. He flicked on another monitor and an elegantly groomed lady came up on the screen. Behind her the logo for the Historical Preservation Society for Mother Earth loomed in bright friendly green tones. She was smiling with a professional detached manner and waiting for Garth to respond. He clicked on the mic clipped to his collar and said, “COM SAT for K-A-Z 2-Y-5 at your service Ma’am.”

“Sol’s Blessings on you Travelers. I am Rachel, chief communications liaison for Mr. Crowley. He has authorized me to contact you for hire. It is for the retrieval of an important acquisition.” Her face was stilted and bland, her eyes not quite focusing on them. This was a recorded message, not a live feed.

Garth paused the message as Sam hopped up and came over to look.

“She said Mr. Crowley?”Sam leaned over Garth’s shoulder to look at the woman’s face on the screen.

“It’s an encoded feed. This is straight up.” Garth doubled checked some of the info coming through on another screen. “They must have been really happy with the last couple of jobs we ran for them.”

“Yea… this is good. Hold on, let’s get this up on the inter-ship vids so the other guys can see this.” Sam reached up and flipped a few switches, then pulled the microphone clipped to his shirt collar closer to his mouth.

“Dean won’t want to do it.” Garth just smiled a little and raised his eyebrows.

“Too bad.” Sam grinned. “The HPS is good coin and I’ve been hoping to get in good with their archive department for a while now. If Crowley… THE Crowley is hiring us… man, I’ll shut Dean in his cabin for the duration if I have to.” Sam gave the mic link by his lips a small squeeze between his thumb and finger and began to speak, “Attention… uh, hey guys… got an incoming job off the COM. Patching it through so we can all see it. Sam out.” He released the mic link and nodded at Garth.

Garth gave him his ‘okay-but-I-will-not-be-responsible-past-this-point’ look and restarted the recorded message. The stilted image of the woman’s face flickered on video screens all over the ship.

“Sol’s Blessings on you Travelers. I am Rachel, chief communications liaison for Mr. Crowley. He has authorized me to contact you for hire. It is for the retrieval of an important acquisition.” Her recorded voice echoed a little all over the ship.

Down in the weapons cache room, Benny paused from rewiring a laser rifle to reach over and adjust the small screen clipped to the edge of his table. He turned up the volume on the screen but his attention went back to his work.

“We will pay you triple the standard job rate, plus special bonuses to be discussed at the contract signing if you agree to the job.”

Chuck and Jimmy paused in the medical bay from inventorying and stocking one of the cabinets to move closer to one of the video screens mounted into the wall.

“We,The Historical Preservation Society of Mother Earth, sent out numerous probe drones into our neighboring solar system, the Epsilon Eridani, in search of the lost ‘Project Argus’ exploration convoy. Our drone probes relayed some information to our data base two Earth days ago that reveal they have located one of the lost vessels: the Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Arroway.”

In the vehicle bay, Dean was under one of the AT rovers. His oil and grease stained jumpsuit clad legs were sprawled out, knees up. He didn’t move from where he was, instead he let out a loud curse followed by the sound of a ratchet cranking furiously under the rover.

“Based on your previous excellent standard of retrieval work and your high level of confidentiality, Mr. Crowley himself would like to personally hire you to go to the co-ordinates sent back by the drone, find the Arroway and bring it whole back to the HPS Station Prime near Mars. We await your reply.” The recording ended.

Dean shoved himself out from under the rover and began to wipe his hands on his pant legs as he sat up. He was angry, and his face advertised it openly. He hauled himself up to stand and stormed out of the vehicle bay. “….son of a bitch….” He growled under his breath as he went.


	2. Benny and Garth and Jimmy and Chuck

‘Baby’ was about the size of a Twentieth Century football field and the rest of the crew could still hear Dean railing into Sam about how they were not going to take this job in spite of ‘Baby’s size. At first it seemed like it was a serious echo bouncing through the ship, but then certain members of the crew realized Garth had purposely left his com link on in the bridge so the argument could be heard by everyone else. Or at least so Garth himself could listen, as he had left the bridge and made his way to the galley for a beer.

When Garth walked into the galley and into the kitchen area, Benny was already there. He had strapped on an apron and was in the process of pan frying something in the large wok that they had. The room smelled of garlic and spices, and sautéed sea food.

Garth peered over Benny’s arm and drank in a deep whiff, “Christina shipped you more shrimp again?” Garth moved to the large refrigeration unit, opened the door and walked into it.

Benny just smiled and flipped the combination of shrimp and seasonings. “Yep. Tha’s my girl.” He purred in a low voice. He swirled the mix around one more time and then dumped it in a huge pot with a gumbo in the works.

Garth wandered back out and shut the door. He held two bottled beers in each hand. He popped them open and handed one to Benny, “…man when you get your cook on…” he chuckled and shook his head, “You are the only one I will let into my kitchen.”

Over the ships speakers Dean was yelling about how Crowley and the HPS couldn’t be trusted, and they were responsible for their Dad’s death, and was Sam crazy….and on and on and on. And Sam was countering with how the last three jobs went fine, and there was no proof of anything and that they could all use the pay and on and on and on.

Garth reached up and clicked off the volume on the speaker in the kitchen, “Same old, same old. I was hoping it would be something new this time with them.”

Benny just huffed a deep chuckle and saw to his gumbo. He paused to take a long draw off his beer and then cocked an eyebrow at Garth, “I’m not sure if Dean don’t have a point on their issue with their Daddy.”

Garth just shook his head and smiled, “Matters not one way or th’other. Dean’s got no proof. If there was proof, Sam would have burnt the HPS to the mutherfreakin’ ground long ‘fore now all by himself.” He leaned in a little to eye the gumbo bubbling in the pot now and he grinned wide, “You hang on to yer girl Christina my Benny, or I’m going to have to steal her away. That shrimp is like heaven.”

Benny gave Garth a hard ‘don’t-you-even-start-that’ look and took another drink of his beer. Garth just laughed and stepped back with his hands up in surrender. Then he turned still chuckling and began to get the table in the room adjacent set for dinner.

 

 ——————————————————-

 

In the medical bay they could still hear Sam and Dean going back and forth, although with less heat as the discussion wore on. Sam was pulling statistics from the financial logs to back up his stand on taking the job. The tactic was winning.

“Do they always go round like that?” Jimmy eyed the video feed showing the brothers on the bridge.

“Not always, but sometimes.”Chuck set a row of antibiotics back into a drawer and marked off a place on his hand held computer tablet.

“So what’s their story?” Jimmy shrugged and smiled a little at Chuck, “What is everyone’s story? If I’m going to be patching people up, I should know a little about them. Right?”

Chuck looked up and nodded, “That’s fair. Though get the tale from the source at some point and don’t cry to me if I have things not all kosher.” Jimmy nodded and gestured for Chuck to continue, “Well Sam and Dean were born into this business. John and Mary, their Dad and Mom, inherited it from Mary’s parents. When Sam was around eight or nine, Mary got caught in an air lock foul. Sucked her right out into the vast. Awful. John raised the boys alone for a while until he took on Bobby Singer. They became partners in the business and raised the boys. When Sam went off to University, I joined the crew along with two other guys named Rufus and Martin. Bobby decided he wanted to move on to have his own gig and so John bought him out. Sam came back from University when the money went dry. Rufus and Martin left. I stayed.”Chuck paused and turned off his tablet. “Times were tough for a while. Then John found a ripe wreck that had originally belonged to one of Crowley’s merchant ventures. We harvested a lot of really prime parts. It was a good haul. John also found the encoded logs from the ship. Took those too and bartered a really hefty sum for them. Looked like we were sitting sweet. We went to celebrate on one of the local stations and John went missing. He turned up dead… shot… on one of the lesser used parts of the station. Somehow Dean got it in his head that Crowley was behind it.”

“Did they ever find the person who shot him?” Jimmy frowned.

“No. No trace. The murderer used an old combustion slug thrower. The old models are floating all over the galaxy and no way to trace them. Sad really.” Chuck scooted up to sit on one of the exam tables.

“And you?” Jimmy moved to sit on the other exam table to face Chuck.

“I didn’t shoot him…” Chuck half barked, half laughed, then got serious suddenly “Kidding. I did it.”

Jimmy blinked in confusion and looked incredulously at Chuck, “….wha….I meant….”

Chuck let out a laugh, “Just messing with you. I know what you meant. I’m actually a writer. I signed on to travel with the Winchester crew to get material for my stories. I’m good with numbers too, so…” he shrugged lightly. “We hired Garth on after John died. Sam knew him in school. He’s a whiz with electronic hardware. And he may not look it but he’s an all out galactic Casanova. Girls all over, every station we port at. It’s insane.” Chuck made these wide sweeping gestures that left Jimmy smiling. “Benny we hired on early this year. We met him at the Miami Beta colony on Kestra 3 when we were delivering a package for Bobby. There was an explosion that took out the side of the orbital station where we were parked. It sucked Sam right out into the vast…just like Mary. Only this time Benny was there…suited up…randomly!….. just some guy doing repairs on the ship next to ours. He saw the explosion and saw Sam launched out. Of course Sam is smart, he expels all the air from his lungs and shuts his eyes tight. Benny shoots over, snags Sam and throws him…. THROWS him!… back in through the hole in the station. Then Benny jets in and gets Sam in through a secondary lock. Dean pretty much high jacked Benny into the crew after that.” The whole time Chuck told this story, he also embellished with hand gestures and sound effects, emphasizing the dramatic nature of the rescue throughout.

“Are you guys done with story time?” Dean was standing in the entry to the medical bay, each hand resting on the edges of the door and a look of non-amusement on his face. He looked at Chuck, cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. Then he looked at Jimmy. He paused to rake his eyes up and down the man quickly. Then he looked away just as fast with an odd uncomfortable look on his face.

“Yea. And the med bay is all stocked and ready to go.” Chuck ignored Dean’s expressions and just grinned.

Dean stepped into the med bay and looked around. The place had been a disaster of a storage unit before. Now it was a clean sterile fully functioning medical treatment room. He gave a satisfied nod and looked back at Chuck ignoring Jimmy. “Good, cuz we’ve got a job. Garth said supper is on, so let’s eat and we’ll discuss what’s up.” He turned without acknowledging Jimmy and walked out.

Jimmy slid off the exam table and looked dejected. “I don’t think he likes me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone at first.” Chuck patted Jimmy on the back as they walked out, “Just wait until you save Sam’s life…. Then he’ll love you forever.”


	3. Oh man, I'm in trouble

_……..Jimmy stretched in a long languid manner against the sheets of his bed. He felt his lover’s hands under the covers gripping his ankle and on the back of his calf. Jimmy smiled as those hands climbed higher, grasping his knee, then the back of his thigh. As they came higher they would tug Jimmy down closer on the bed, making him shift in short jerks down along the sheets. The hands reached higher now, one claiming a healthy handful of his backside. The other gained purchase on his hip and another tug brought him further down to them. Their chest was pressed to the top of his thigh now and Jimmy’s smile let a warm chuckle escape into the air. Fingers squeezed and roamed over his haunches and his lover’s open mouth worked in slow lazy kisses across his skin. Jimmy’s playful smile shifted and his lips fell open with a soft sound. More of their mouth opened to him, exploring everywhere in that region. Everywhere but one, and Jimmy’s breath had become ragged because of it. Jimmy reached down to press his hands against theirs and then to coax them closer to where his want was growing. Each time he tried his hands were pushed away, and their mouth would find a patch of skin and suckle it firmly to distract him. Each time a low dry sound would catch in Jimmy’s throat and his body would squirm slowly. Finally Jimmy could take no more and he lifted the covers to look down at his tormentor._

_He was greeted with a roguish smile and green eyes that looked like luminous planets….._

_“Dean…” He gasped._

Suddenly Jimmy sat up in his bed, startled awake from his dream. He blinked out into the darkness of his room, a cold sweat forming on his shoulders and brow. He was completely alone. He realized his breath was coming quick and he was ridiculously aroused. He wiped his hand over his face and calmed his breathing. He reached over and tapped the small bubble along the wall by his bed and the lights started to dimly glow in the room. He swung his legs out of his bunk, and then made his way over into his water closet. He unclasped the latch and lowered the sink basin out, then ran cold water in it. He doused his face several times and then took a towel from its hook nearby. He wandered back out into his small room as he wiped his face.

Then he just stood in the middle of his dimly lit room and didn’t move.

“Where did THAT come from…?” he asked himself aloud, though his voice was quiet. His body was relaxed now, and the physical reaction to the dream was fading. It had been very vivid in his head. He could still feel the echoes of the sensation of hands and lips on his skin as he stood there.

“The last thing I need is to start fantasizing about….and…. with my Captain…. Oh gods.” Jimmy heaved out a deep sigh and trudged over to the small window portal next to his bunk. He popped the safety shield up and looked out into the vast beyond. The Milky Way glittered and sparkled stretching away through the deepness. It appeared to start way below his cabin under the ship and swing up to crest over the top of the ship. In truth it wrapped all the way around the ship for millions of miles, far and away like a zillion fairy tale lands.

Sometimes the sheer size of space when he saw it made his head a little dizzy.

But not now, not when his head was full of trying to understand where that dream had come from.

Jimmy replayed the evening in his head. While they had eaten dinner the conversation had been light. Except for Dean who kept quiet and just looked to his own bowl of gumbo. After the gumbo was gone and they were on their third round of beers, Garth had brought up a large video screen from the center of the table. Sam had used details shown on the screen to brief them on the job and some of the possible snags they might encounter.

One big one was that the HPS wanted the recovered ship returned whole. This meant towing it instead of breaking the vessel down into smaller more easily transported parts. The other one had to do with balancing the ships fuel ratios with the distance they would cover. There was some discussion on possible solutions to each. Then it was decided by vote that the crew wanted the job in spite of the challenges.

Through all of this, Dean had said nothing. His expression had been neutral and his body language relaxed. That was until the discussion about the job was over and Jimmy had expressed the need to update the medical records for the crew. He had asked that they all come see him over the next few days for a brief physical exam. That was when Dean got up abruptly and had left without a word.

Jimmy shifted and leaned his arm against the wall, letting his forehead press against the thick clear window. “Maybe I’m just trying so hard to fit in here that my brain decided to….” He took a deep breath and let it back out, “Decided to what? Fuck my Captain!?” He let out a groan, pushed away from the port hole and shut the safety shield. “Jimmy you are taking everything way too personally.” He said this to himself out loud in an as matter of fact way as he could muster.

“Maybe you have just been alone too long and you’re synapses are shorting out.”

————————————————————

The next morning Benny was waiting for Jimmy in the medical bay. Benny was seated on one of the exam tables with his bare feet and legs swing almost childlike as they dangled off the floor. He was wearing a gray flannel robe that did little to hide his broad shoulders or his muscled back.

Jimmy entered with a small smile, and greeted Benny as he moved to the computer grid wall to boot the system up. “You could have lowered the table you know, so you aren’t….” Jimmy gestured with his hand to the distance between the large man’s feet and the floor.

“I don’t mess with what’s not mine.” Benny said gently in his low soft drawl. “Not generally anyhow.”

Jimmy gave him a ‘fair enough’ look and pointed to a small pad area that was now illuminated in the center of the floor, “Could you stand there please? This is a basic scan… it’ll give me your height, weight, bone density, heat rate, blood pressure and blood circulation efficiency….as well as a few other things.” Jimmy continued punching in something on the computer grid wall and then detached a hand held computer tablet. When he turned around to face Benny, the burly man was standing stark naked on the illuminated floor pad. The robe was now folded neatly on the exam table.

Jimmy raised his eyebrows and walked closer, amusement in his eyes. He decided to not to tell Benny he could have stayed dressed. The scan would have been calibrated to ignore the garment’s molecular structure. He took his readings and then gestured for Benny to put the robe back on, “Okay let’s take a blood sample.”

Benny slipped the robe back on and held still as Jimmy brought over a small chrome gun like device. It had a clear empty chamber on its side. Jimmy placed it against the inside of Benny’s forearm and pressed gently. “You’ll feel a brief sting….ready?” Jimmy raised his brows slightly and looked to Benny’s face. Benny nodded, and then didn’t even acknowledge any sensation when Jimmy withdrew the blood sample.

Jimmy walked away and plugged the device into a port along the computer grid wall, “So where are you from Benny?”

Benny leaned back against the exam table, sliding his thick strong hands into the deep pockets of the robe, “New Thibodaux colony originally. On Second Earth in the Tau Ceti. Second generation there. Ma had a restaurant there, and Pa fished. Pa was a first gen, Ma was a new settl’r.”

Jimmy nodded and entered the info into his data base. It had become a standard bit of info with people denoting if they had been born on Mother Earth, like Benny’s mother or if they were born on another colonized planet like his father. It was found to have affected the human biology in numerous ways, from figuring out who might get cancer to how long you might live to how well you functioned working in a zero gravity environment. “Live there your whole life?”

“I’s there til’ I was seventeen. Then I got antsy to see the stars. I took a job on a cruise vessel working in the engine rooms and really never looked back.” Benny had this relaxed timbre to his voice that Jimmy found set him at ease.

Jimmy glanced back with a friendly smile to encourage Benny to continue. “That happens. You get a good look at the beauty of the cosmos and suddenly nothing compares.”

“Too right you are.” Benny smiled, one side of his mouth curving up a little more and causing a slight dimple. “Until you meet th’ right girl and then well…” He took in a warm breath, “Then lookin’ in her eyes is better than watching light from a sun bend across the edge of an event horizon.”

Jimmy paused and turned around to look at Benny. The blue of Benny’s eyes was dancing and his focus was distant as if he was reliving the most beautiful memory he had. Jimmy set down his tablet and leaned against a nearby console. “Tell me about her”

“Oh, no… I’ve said too much already.” Benny said almost bashfully, and it was an incredible contrast to his rough muscled form.

“Part of being a good Doctor is understanding the people under my care. Knowing what makes them tick. What do they fear? What accelerates their stress levels? What relaxes them? What brings them joy? In crisis situations information like this can mean the difference between life and death.” Jimmy made small gestures with one hand as he spoke.

Benny nodded, “Okay…. Well…. I was working the build on the new university space station near Kestra 3. She was part of the energy control team for the university. They’d send her and th’other guy out to inspect the site every few weeks… an’ one day during lunch break I wound up sittin’ next to her on the newly complete primary observation deck. The view of th’ Kestra gas nebula was pretty amazing from there, but not half as amazing as her deep brown eyes when she took off them polarization goggles over her face….” He paused and said quietly, “Oh Christina….” Then Benny gave off a deep rumbling sigh, “We jus’ hit it off. She’s at the University for one more year an’ so I took this job to make a bit more coin to save up. Though I like it here a lot more an’ I figured so I been trying to find a way to talk Dean an’ Sam into bringing her on crew.”

“She’s an engineering specialist?” Jimmy queried.

“Power systems….tweaking existing colliders or solar arrays to be more efficient. I’m off to send her a com when we are done here to pick her brain on our current job situation.” Benny’s eyes glowed with pride.

“Please give her my regards when you speak to her.” Jimmy smiled and offered his hand to shake in a gentlemanly fashion.

“I will, thank you.” Benny returned the handshake and then exited.

Jimmy went back to the computer grid wall and brought up a display of Benny’s cardio-vascular system, then of his bone structure. Jimmy noted where Benny had broken his arm years ago by highlighting an image of the bone on one of the screens. He was in the process of scrutinizing and analyzing some of Benny’s DNA information when he felt eyes on the back of his neck. He turned to find Dean standing in the doorway.

Dean was in a clean jumpsuit, and had his arms folded across his chest. His facial expression was one of annoyance and he glowered at the exam table without looking at Jimmy. “Okay. Let’s get this over. I have things to do.” He said gruffly.

Jimmy swallowed nervously and gestured to the illuminated pad on the floor.

“Do I have to get naked?” Dean spat out and didn’t move.

Jimmy nodded in the negative and just looked away quickly to the computer grid. He heard Dean shuffle over to the illuminated pad and then stop. Like before with Benny he set up the scan on the grid wall, then picked up his hand held tablet and turned to Dean.

Dean was standing with his weight on one leg, the other leg jutting out slightly. Both hands were still firmly across his chest and his frown was pointed at the computer grid wall. It gave Dean an air of detached dominance and it made Jimmy on edge. He ran the scan and then returned to the computer grid. He set down his tablet, dislodged the blood sample device used on Benny from its port then picked up a fresh one from inside a drawer.

He paused, calmed himself and then walked over to Dean with the device, “Please roll up your sleeve…Captain….” He dipped his head slightly and focused his eyes on Dean’s arm.

Dean looked at the top of Jimmy’s bowed head, his brows raised. He clenched his jaw and rolled up his sleeve. Jimmy took hold of Dean’s arm firmly and turned it to get to the inside of his forearm. Then he placed the device against Dean’s skin. Dean’s nostrils flared a little and still not looking up Jimmy warned him about the sting. Jimmy took the blood sample and then walked away to plug the device into the same previous port along the computer grid wall.

“Uhm, I need to know your place of birth please…Captain…” Jimmy asked and his voice felt too dry in his throat. He was looking at the computer grid and not at Dean.

Dean began to roll his sleeve down, and his eyes bored into Jimmy’s back. A flicker of something passed across Dean’s eyes when Jimmy called him ‘Captain’. “I’ve uploaded all my family and medical history to the main data base already.” Dean said in a clipped tone, “If you have trouble finding it ask Chuck.” Then he turned abruptly and walked out of the room.

Jimmy’s shoulders sagged and he put his palm over his face. He realized his heart was hammering slightly in his chest and in his mind’s eye all he could see was Dean’s beautiful bare arm. He whispered quietly to himself, “….oh man. I’m in trouble….” and he sighed heavily.

 

—————————————————-

 

Dean marched through the mid section of the ship away from the medical bay, past the galley and the crew cabins, down and around past the engineering areas, and then down into the vehicle bay on the lowest level. He crossed over to the tool compartments built into the wall and began opening and closing them with random agitated haste. Then he shut all of them and walked over to one of the EVA units and spread his palms flat against its large view port. He leaned his weight on his arms and stretched himself looking down at the floor. He stayed like that, still and unmoving for several minutes. Then he pulled away and slammed one hand against the EVA hard, making it rock slightly in its berth.

“Dammit Dean!!” He chastised himself in his mind, “You can NOT allow this new guy to get under your skin!”

…Skin… the word echoed in Dean’s head. The angles of Jimmy’s shoulders lingered in Dean’s mind, followed by the remembered feel of Jimmy’s smooth but firm fingers on his arm. Pure animal attraction was a deadly distraction out here in space when it wasn’t backed up by a solid relationship and Dean knew it. Even worse, being in a relationship opened up a whole new level of possible loss and pain that Dean was not prepared to deal with either. If ever.

He paced. He cursed Sam and Garth under his breath for hiring Jimmy. He cursed how his heart sped up when he would see Jimmy or hear him mentioned by anyone. He bitched at his body for responding to Jimmy’s touch when he had drawn Dean’s blood.

Dean clenched his teeth and hissed out in a whisper, “… why does he have to be so freakin’….?” Dean stopped in the middle of the vehicle bay and scrubbed his hand over his face.

“….oh man. I’m in trouble….” and he sighed heavily.


	4. Kestra

When the video screen flickered on, Sam’s head and shoulders filled it. He was looking away from the camera and running one hand through his hair. Then he set something that was in his other hand down and turned his attention to the camera and the feedback. He gave a casual smile, which lingered on his lips as he spoke.

“Navigator’s personal log, Earth date January 24, 3065. Entry number…” he paused and looked at a nearby read out, “2,745. We are currently docked at Kestra University Station. Details of the formal information can be found in my OFF NAV log in the main data banks…” He paused again to take a sip from his coffee mug and then place it back down. “The contract negotiations went really well with the HSP lawyers reps that Crowley sent. I’m kinda surprised at the level of coin they are giving us for this, plus giving us a line of credit to pay for all our supplies and any pre-maintenance we’ll need before the trek out there. They also agreed to let me have access to their records archives as well as giving us the all clear to make use of their R and D department when we come back. They also…”Sam stops holding back a small giggle, “I can’t believe they did this. They gave us diamonds. Actual uncut rough hewn real diamonds. Enough to fill a small ammo crate, which is hilariously where Dean and Benny stashed them once we got back on board.” Sam shifted in his chair, “They’ll be invaluable to us for repair work and for bartering on any colonies or stations that don’t deal in coin.” Sam glanced down at something on the feedback loop then looked back to the camera, “Thankfully Crowley wasn’t there himself. Had to bow out and…”Sam made air quotes with his fingers, “send his regards. I was a little worried Dean would make a scene with him so that solved that. I’m not sure why Dean has been so on edge this last week. And he’s practically avoiding the new med guy Jimmy. I don’t get it.” Sam raised his brows and shrugged, “So anyway we are here in the Kestra system to see Benny’s girl Christina, stock up on some supplies and to surf the gas clouds to pull in hydrogen, argon, and alctuaria there. Speaking of Benny, we weren’t docked a full five minutes before he was out of the boarding dock and on the University station. Said he’d be back tomorrow late with Christina to help with the fuel issue….”Sam chuckled gently, “Can’t blame the guy. Sometimes it’s a pain being stuck in space with a bunch of testosterone bags.”Sam leaned forward and gave another small smile, “Sam Winchester signing out.”

The video feed flickered off and went dark.

 

————————————————————-

 

[*music: Ode To The Bouncer/Studio Killers](http://youtu.be/Lo-EmtXbFRg)

“Oooooooohhhhh let me in or I’ll get physical with yoooooooouuuu…. I just gotta dance right now it’s critical to doooooo…” A snappy beat bounced loudy out of the galley. Dean paused in the door way and peered in.

Garth was on the table in the center dancing and shaking his ass to the beat, moving his feet and generally enjoying the bassline. Chuck was dancing as well all around the table, moving with one hand on his hip and the other doing this waving wiggling thing in front of him. Both had their eyes closed and were just lost in the beat of the music.

Dean smirked with amusement and leaned against the door frame to watch them. The song was infectious but he held still.

Then Jimmy came around into view from the kitchen area. He shuffled his feet to the funky music, occasionally dropping his hip in time with the beat. His moves were fluid and smooth, and his head bobbed easily with the rhythm. In his hands he carried three beers and as he danced over to Chuck, he passed one into Chuck’s hand. Jimmy then leaned across the table and nudged a beer bottle against Garth’s leg. Garth scooped it easily out of Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy did a smooth turn then cocked his hip and jerked it to the music. None of them noticed Dean standing there, his eyes riveted to Jimmy’s hips and legs.

The beat kept going and the guys kept moving. Garth laughed and swung his arm around his head like he was mimicking a cattle lasso. Chuck popped open his bottle and took a long drought off it. Jimmy did another turn, his beer loose in his fingers. He grooved with the music, tending to lead with his right hip which curved his stomach in and made him bend his knees slightly. Jimmy’s dark hair was messy and tussled, and he kept his head down as he danced.

Dean shifted where he stood, but kept watching his crew boogie around the galley area. The three men really started to get into their movement, laughing and occasionally downing a drink from their beers. Dean found himself smiling genuinely as they danced, but his gaze kept falling to Jimmy. The movement of Jimmy’s body was something Dean couldn’t seem to stop watching.

There was someone to Dean’s left in the passageway and he glanced over to see Sam approaching. Sam stopped at Dean’s shoulder and looked in. His face lit up brightly at the sight. Sam clapped Dean on the shoulder and slipped past his brother to join the rest of the crew dancing.  Chuck looked up to see Sam and greeted him with wide handshake that slapped into Sam’s palm. They pulled each other close to bump shoulders, jostling each other. In the process Sam stole Chuck’s beer and then turned to high five Jimmy. When Sam went to take a drink however, he found Chuck’s bottle empty. Everyone’s laughter rang through the music.

Garth saw Dean then, and pointed to him. He motioned encouragingly for Dean to join them but Dean just chuckled and shook his head no. Instead he walked over to the door into the refrigeration unit and opened it. He wandered inside and leaned over to grab a few more cold beers.  When Dean turned around Jimmy was standing there in the doorway. Dean straightened up and squared his shoulders. There was a long moment when they just stood there looking into each others eyes unblinking. Jimmy took another step in, bringing his body close to Dean’s. He lifted his hands and gently pulled the bottles of beer out of Dean’s grasp. He just gave a small nod, held Dean’s gaze again for another moment then turned and left. Dean swallowed and started breathing again. He steadied himself against the shelves, grabbed another beer and then walked out into the room. He shut the door behind him, and leaned against it a moment to watch the guys goof around dancing. He realized his hands were shaking so he gripped his beer tighter and pushed away from the door. He walked quickly out into the hall and took a long deep breath.

Garth stumbled into the passageway and joined Dean, “Hey, we’re going into the station tonight to hang out at one of the bars there….”He grinned and purred, “College girrrrrlssssss! You should come with us. Sam is. Might as well enjoy a night out before we’re in deep space again.”

“…You all are going?” Dean emphasized the word ‘all’.

“Yea, sure.” Garth looked puzzled. “Why not?”

Dean felt a small hard stone of some kind settling into his gut. “No reason.” Dean huffed. What was he going to say? He was jealous Jimmy would be out at a bar enjoying other people’s company? Where did he get the right to get pissed over that? “Go… go have fun. I need to stay here and make sure the waste tanks get ripped and processed in the fission colliders. Just stay out of the security cells okay? I’m not bailing your asses out.”

Garth just laughed and boogied back into the galley.

Dean knocked his beer bottle open on a large grommet loop on his tool belt. He turned and made his way to the lower levels. The whole time he circled his hand flat against his stomach, rubbing gently. He was trying to calm the rubbery sensation that was bouncing around inside him. He paused and put his beer to his lips, then nearly guzzled half of it down. Dean leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “This is stupid.”He thought, “I don’t even know the guy. It’s just sex. I just need to get laid. Yes. That’s all.”


	5. The Scoop

The next morning Dean was seated in the pilots chair looking out through the spacious view windows that surrounded the bridge. He was leaning back in the pilot seat cradling a mug of cocoa against his stomach. Outside the University station stretched away to his right. It was a beautiful design with its hexagonal shapes and lines, building spires and garden domes. The docking port for space vessels like ‘Baby’ sat away from the University on the end of a sideways jutting spire. From where Dean sat he could see people walking along the observation windows going to and from the other ships docked next to ‘Baby’.

Flickering in the distance way above him he could see the other space stations in the Kestra system. Colony stations where people lived and worked, and one where Sam had almost died.

He could also see the Kestra gas clouds rising out and away from its main sun in the distance. The clouds oozed and flowed through space, drifting off millions of kilometers to pool into the nebula at the edge of its suns’ system. Dean couldn’t see the nebula from where he sat. It glowed and glimmered somewhere behind him in the vast.

Dean focused on the clouds for a while, formulating the best angle to approach them when they did The Scoop. The Scoop was when a ship swung in close with large electromagnetic nets, huge plasticine bags, or in ‘Baby’s case, large openings in the front of the ship that mimicked a great whales’ mouth. The goal was to scoop up the gases, chemicals and minerals that were floating out from suns like this one. Those clouds were rich in all manner of elements that helped space ships bounce between systems, galaxies and worlds.

Dean emptied his mug and set it aside. He began to stand up when a group of people wandering down through the docking corridor caught his eye. He leaned on the console to see better and smiled when he saw Benny walking in front holding the hand of a pretty blonde girl. Behind Benny, Garth was weaving around and obviously singing, a giggling girl on each arm. Sam followed walking next to a stunning brunette girl and they were both laughing with Garth.

And then Dean saw Jimmy walking with his arm around the waist of a handsome blonde guy, their heads leaning in close to each other as they talked. Dean’s eyes went wide as he saw them stop a moment and kiss, the blonde man’s hand lingering against Jimmy’s cheek. Dean felt his lungs go wooden and the air caught hard in his throat. He stood up quickly and turned away from the window. He moved to step around the pilot’s chair but accidentally caught his mug against his hip. It slid off the console and cracked against the metal reinforced floor.

Dean flopped down to sit on his butt beside it and began to pick up the broken pieces. Once they were all cradled in his hand he let out a loud curse. His shoulders drooped and he carefully turned over one of the broken pieces of the mug with his finger. He pushed out an annoyed sigh, stiffened his back and got up.

“Well….” Dean said softly, “That’s that.”

 

———————————————————

 

[*music: More Human Than Human, White Zombie](http://youtu.be/7NZMZhy8Ob0)

The entire ship rumbled slightly. It wasn’t enough to send things on shelves falling to the ground but if the crew tried to walk without holding on to something they might find balancing difficult. Chuck made his way skimming his hands along the passageway walls, leaning when he needed to as he went. He gripped the hand rails and pulled himself up the metal steps that lead up into the bridge area. He braced himself at the top and worked his way along the back wall to one of the observation seats mounted in that area. He sat down next to Christina and Benny who were both already strapped in. Chuck pulled the chest and hip straps around himself and clicked them closed. Christina grinned at Chuck, giving him a thumbs up with her right hand. Her left hand was twined together with Benny’s, but Benny’s attention was on the rivers of color and light pouring across the windows in the front of the bridge.

Garth and Sam were strapped in at their stations, and at the front Dean was belted into the pilot’s seat. He was gripping the steering wheel and maneuvering the foot guides manually. Right now his right foot was pulled up high, bending his leg so that his heel nearly touched his right butt cheek. His whole body was leaning to the left with his elbows tucked in close to his torso.

Back to the left behind Benny was Jimmy. He was standing, but had wrapped his hands and wrists in leather straps around one of the support posts near the ceiling. It allowed him to sway slightly but remain on his feet. From the looks of it, Jimmy could get out of the straps quickly. Chuck surmised that Jimmy had placed himself like that in case there was a medical emergency. It would be faster to slip free than getting out of the seat straps.

Around all of them, Dean had cranked up music to listen to as they ran through The Scoop.

The ship listed to the left and the vibration increased slightly. The gaseous colors streaming across the windows were now becoming thicker, and tiny pings of bigger particles were raining across the reinforced glass.

“Holding tank number one is at 85% capacity….”Sam called out as he continued to read the monitors and feeds on his console. “Tanks two and three at 75% and 56%. Tank four is full, shutting it closed.” Sam flicked several switches and thumbed a lever over.

Dean shifted and the ship dipped down and sideways, the torque of the motion making it feel like everyone was riding a wave. “Hell yea Baby, GO!” Then he pushed down hard with his left foot and the ship leapt forward accelerating. “…hot damn!!!”

Suddenly the gases outside tripled in intensity. The ship shot forward, then up and everyone was shoved back against their seats. A streak of brilliant purple colour outside flooded the room in violet hues of light, then vanished.

“Tank one full! Tank two at 90%!” Sam yelled out.

“Hold on…. Vaccum bubble!!” Dean yelled back and swung his body hard to the right, shunting his right foot half way down to the floor and pushing the steering wheel away in front of him. Briefly the gases outside faded and the stars beyond shimmered through. The ship ceased rumbling and it felt for a moment as if they were all just floating. Then the bright colours flooded back and the ship bounced hard.

Everyone was jostled around in their seats. Christina let out a loud giggle and Chuck looked over to see Benny and her tucked together close with big smiles on their faces. He looked back to check on Jimmy and found him just staring hard at Dean.

“All tanks full.” Sam looked over at Dean, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Got it.” Dean replied and pushed both feet down level with the floor. Then he eased the wheel into a turn and the ship rocked to the left. There was that wave sensation again and the gases rolled away from the windows to reveal the Kestra system, its suns and its nebula beyond. Then the ship was still and quiet sailing in the vast.

“Ooooh looky.” Garth was reading his monitors, “We picked up all kinds of goodies.”

Christina wiggled out of her safety straps and moved to look over Garth’s shoulder. “Xenon? You got some, tell me you got some.”

Garth looked a moment, doubled checked and then said, “Yup. Quite a bit too.”

“Yes!” She smiled and did a little happy dance. She turned to Benny who had unbuckled his safety straps and was coming up beside her. She said to him, “We got it!”

Benny wrapped his large hand around her smaller one, “How long will it take you to set it up?”

“Four days. Five, max.” She beamed.

Benny bent close and placed a warm kiss on her forehead, “Tha’s mah girl.”

The rest of the crew came to stand around Christina and Benny. She reviewed again how she would modify their engines for better propulsion, and how it would increase the distances they went before they needed to refuel.

“Well.” Dean placed his hands on his hips. His eyes were still shining from the adrenaline rush of guiding the ship. “Sounds like we have some work to do. Let’s get to it.”

The crew dispersed. Chuck wandered off down to the holding tanks with Sam to start the filter machines that would separate the different elements and sift them into different holding casks. Garth made his way to the galley, warning everyone to head there in two hours for dinner. Benny bent down so Christina could slip up onto his back, his hands cradling her backside as her arms wrapped around his neck. She nuzzled his shoulder and ear as they went off, whispering something to him that made his cheeks turn cherry red.

That left Dean and Jimmy standing there on the bridge.

“Excuse me Captain, I wanted to ask permission for something…”Jimmy said almost hesitantly.

“What, you want your boyfriend on board too? Christina is only along for the ride until the mods are done. Then we leave her at the University. Our waste processors can only handle so many people…” Dean passed his hand in front of him and frowned slightly.

“What? Boyfriend?….I….don’t….” Jimmy titled his head slightly as he looked at Dean, then his brows lifted a little. “Oh. Oh! Stan isn’t, he’s not my boyfriend. That was just a one night thing.” Jimmy rested his hands casually on his hips, “Probably never see him again. No no, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask you at all.”

Dean relaxed slightly and then he looked everywhere but at Jimmy. “Okay. So. Go on.”

“Well I’ve been talking with Garth and Chuck about the three of us installing a hydroponics lab in that empty space next door to the galley.” Jimmy shifted his weight onto his left leg, “And since we’ll be floating for a while as Christina makes these upgrades I thought we could work on getting it set up. It would make the air healthier and ease off the CO2 scrubbers…”

Dean looked down at the toes of his boots a moment and then flashed his eyes up at Jimmy, “Alright. But if I find one bug in my bunk…. ONE BUG… the whole thing is getting pulled out. Got it?”

Jimmy smiled big and reached over to touch Dean on his shoulder, “Thank you.” Dean held his breath as Jimmy’s hand lingered there a moment but then the other man pulled away and turned to leave.

“Hey Doc…”Dean cleared his throat, “So why are you out here anyway, with us? I mean, Sammy an’ me…this is our life. All we’ve known. Chuck’s here to get stuff to write about… or to keep from writing… I’m sometimes not sure which.” He took a half step closer to Jimmy, “Garth is here because right now it’s fun to him and that’s enough. Benny’s here because it’s the best paying gig he’s ever had….” Dean leveled his gaze with Jimmy. “I’ve seen your creds. You could be at any hospital at any colony or settlement. Hell, you could work on Earth. What’s out here for you?”

There was a long pause as Jimmy seemed to weigh out something in his mind. He met Dean’s hard look with a steady resolve in his own eyes and took a deep breath.

“Death.” Jimmy replied quietly. “I’m ….dying.”

“Wait…what?!” Dean’s eyes creased up in a squint.

“I have Leigh disease, also known as Subacute Necrotizing Encephalomyelopathy. It is a rare neurometabolic disorder that affects the central nervous system. I got it in a medical lab accident that mutated my mitochondrial DNA.” Jimmy spoke quietly, but in a clinical way. Dean couldn’t tell if this was Jimmy just being a doctor or if this was something the man had come to terms with in his life.

“Okay, so…what does that mean?” Dean frowned but managed to cock one eyebrow up.

“It means that eventually I’ll suffer from sustained muscle contractions that will cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. I’ll also have seizures and eventually general weakness, kidney failure, and heart problems.” the blue of Jimmy’s eyes deepened from cobalt into an indigo, “I didn’t want to be home with my husband and a burden to him. So I left. And the moment I see signs of the onset of symptoms, I’m taking a walk.”

“Taking a walk?!” Dean scrunched his face in confusion.

“Yes.” Jimmy pointed out the bridge windows, out into the vast, out into the empty void of space,“Out there.”


	6. My Brown Eyed Girl

Jimmy hadn’t given Dean a chance to reply and even if he had, what could Dean say? It wasn’t like they were friends. And as much as Dean loved it that Jimmy called him ‘Captain’ the truth was Dean wasn’t their Captain, he just managed the business. He had no authority to order anyone around really except within the business as their boss. Their personal lives were their own.

So the days had passed. Garth, Chuck and Jimmy connected with the Agricultural and Horticultural Department at the University. With this resource they had taken to overhauling the room next to the galley into their hydroponics lab. They didn’t cut corners either and went full out on the project. Sam had handed over the credit line the HSP had given them and a few of the diamonds to fund their ultimate plans. Meanwhile Benny, Christina and Dean had been hard at work modifying the engine drives, the colliders, and several other systems to boost ‘Baby’s efficiency. Sam floated between the two projects helping out as needed. It kept them all busy and Dean never had the opportunity to speak again with Jimmy during that time.

On the fifth morning of their park in the Kestra system, Dean woke earlier than usual. They planned on testing the new drive installation that day, and he wanted to be clear headed for the test. He showered, shaved, and found one of his Dad’s jumpsuits and put it on. Then he wandered down to the galley to load up on breakfast and coffee.

Once again as he approached the galley [music floated out of its entryway](http://youtu.be/kqXSBe-qMGo). This time instead of bumping dance music it was an easy going happy song, “…and you…. My brown eyed girl…..”

Dean strode into the galley and around into the kitchen, then stopped dead in his tracks and turned around quickly. He eyes wide and a smile growing on his face, “Uh you guys should maybe let us know if you are getting freaky in the kitchen…” He laughed.

Christina punched Dean lightly on his shoulder. “Perv! We were just kissing.” She laughed brightly.

Dean turned around with a smile on his face. Benny was leaning back against the counter, pancake flour on his nose, cheek, arm and leg. His smile was warm and happy just like the one Christina had all over her face. She too had pancake flour on her nose, and on her tush. They had been making a big stack of pancakes to share with the crew.

“Just kissing….”Dean smirked and poured some of the coffee they had made, “That’s not what I heard.”

Christina picked up a nearby spatula and pointed it at Dean, “Oh?”

“…The two man EVA in the vehicle bay yesterday sound familiar?” Dean peered over the edge of his coffee mug at them playfully, “Or how about the main observation deck on the roof?”

Christina blushed crimson and turned to flip the pancakes. Benny just cleared his throat and grabbed a towel to wipe the flour off his face.

“The EVA was all steamed up from the inside when I was in there last night. And the observation deck was locked from the inside when Chuck went up there day before yesterday….” Dean leaned over to nudge Benny’s arm but Benny shot him a sideways look that said for Dean to be careful. “I wonder how that happened…..?” Dean grinned.

“Morning!” Sam walked in, still in his sleep suit with a robe around him, his feet just in socks and slippers. He walked over to the large canvas tarp that was draped against the wall that was shared with the hydroponics lab. He nudged it with his hand to peer behind it then came into the kitchen “Exciting day huh?…. Ooooo pancakes!”

Dean pointed to the tarp, “How long will that eyesore be there?”

Sam poured a cup of coffee for himself, “We put in a glass wall so once the bamboo grows in, we’ll have some lovely greenery to look at when we eat.”He took a careful sip of the hot liquid, “Chuck wants it hidden until it’s all grown in….It grows fast so shouldn’t be long.”

“Bamboo?” Dean looked confused.

“Sure,”Benny chimed in, “We can eat the shoots and use the wood for a lot of different things. Resurface all the cabin floors with it. Be warmer on the feet when you tumble out of bed.”

“…and on other parts…” Christina giggled and gave Benny a wink.

Soon the rest of the crew had filtered in and was gathered around the table feasting on pancakes and bacon product. They talked and jested happily, eagerly discussing how the hydroponics lab was coming along and about the engine tests.

No one noticed the odd looks Dean and Jimmy traded with each other across the table.

 

 ————————————————————-

 

 ‘Baby’ was moving at a decent clip along the outer edge of the University station’s orbital path. Her engines were humming along sweetly as she cut a long wide swing to point out towards the nebula on the edge of the system. One moment she was a hot shimmering blur and then she was gone. A split second later she blurred in again at the very crest of the nebula’s edge, slowing to a low speed.

Inside on the bridge Benny was holding Christina tight in his arms, swinging her around in joy. Chuck, his face bright and smiling was typing furiously on his tablet. Dean was whooping with excitement and unbuckling himself from the pilot’s chair to swoop over and meet his brother Sam in a bear hug. Garth leapt out of his chair and soon everyone was hugging everyone in congratulations. Well everyone except Dean and Jimmy who just shook hands. Then Jimmy moved away to sit at the back while Dean diverted his attention elsewhere.

“How long?! How long did it take us?!” Dean clapped Garth on the back as the two of them moved over to Garth’s station.

“A quarter of a second…. A quarter of a second to….to…” Garth looked over the information on the read out, blinked and then looked at Dean with his face full of awe. He looked over at Christina and blinked again. He gulped,“We….went….183.34 AUs.”

Chuck ran some calculations on his tablet and then looked at Garth like he was insane, “But that’s….over 27 QUADRILLION kilometers!!”

Dean re-read the information on Garth’s data, then looked at Garth, then looked at Christina. “Faster than the speed of light.”

“No. Noooooo.” Chuck shook his head, “We didn’t.” He looked over at Christina, “Did we?”

Christina just stood there hand in hand with Benny, her face grinning huge. “Nope. Ships structure isn’t made to handle that.”

“Then how did we move….?” Dean looked lost.

Sam walked over and knowingly smiled at Christina. He and Benny looked at each other, and then they exchanged looks with Christina. Sam said, “Do you want me to try?” Christina nodded for him to go ahead.

Sam took the edge of his shirt and pinched it between both thumb and forefinger of each hand drawing it out into a straight line, “We folded space. We ‘tessered’. We moved through a wormhole we created.”

Chuck’s eyes went round and big and he had to sit down. Garth on the other hand came closer as if he understood partly what Sam was saying. “Go on…”

“Here look…. It’s kind of like this….say my left hand is where we were…”Sam lifted the hem of his shirt with his left hand, “And this is where we wound up….” He lifted his right hand and that piece of his shirt, then he brought the two edges touching together in the middle. “Like this.”

Garth frowned and stroked his chin. Chuck had to bend over and put his head between his knees. Dean peered around his brother’s arm, scrutinized Sam’s gestures and then looked back out the windows.

Jimmy had come up quietly to stand next to Benny and Christina, “This is remarkable. I don’t think the HSP or any of the governments or the allied colonies have this technology.”

Christina shook her head, “No actually the Kestra system had been working with these drives for quite a while now. Their long range ships have been tessering for many years. The break though we invented at the University was a switch in the power systems for it. They were using cesium and it was too volatile, too hard to keep stable. So we went back and looked at some of the old ways and discovered that in the 20th century they substituted xenon for cesium. So we’ve been working with that and getting excellent results.”

Garth snapped his fingers, “Xenon which is in abundance here in this system. That’s why you wanted us to run a Scoop.”

Christina just smiled and nodded.

Dean perked up, “….but the HSP doesn’t have this yet do they?”

“Nope.”Benny answered, “And from what Christina tells me they ain’t getting’ it soon. They don’ even know ‘bout it yet.”

“We’ll have to be very careful not to allow this to leak to them then.” Jimmy said with a grave look on his face.

“Not a problem!” Dean beamed, proud that he now had tech on his ‘Baby’ that was unique and secret. “Who wants a drink?!”


	7. Quit Calling Me Captain

“Navigator’s personal log, Earth date February 5, 3065. Entry number 2,752…” Sam reached up to rub his eye with his fingers, “We are several days out from the Kestra System. We stopped briefly at the Perth Outland Space Station for a few supplies we couldn’t get before, then headed into deep space. Even with the mods Christina gave the ship, we still need to take in steps so the engines don’t over work themselves. But normally what would have taken us a few months looks like it will break down into a few weeks.”Sam shifted in his seat and continued, “We’re out of COM link range now though and Benny’s been holed up inside his bunk all day. This is the first time he and Christina have been out of contact since they started seeing each other….”Sam shook his head a little, “I know it was hard for him saying good bye to her when we left the University. He’s a tough guy though.”Sam nodded as if he was convinced everything would be okay for Benny in the long run, “The hydroponics lab is growing in nicely. I’m pretty excited about everything that Garth and Chuck picked out to plant. The smaller plants have started to grow in and we have shoots of the ferns and trees making an appearance. Probably should have done this a long time ago.”He gave a light chuckle then but paused as if he was weighing something on his mind, “One more thing before I sign off…. Dean…. He’s….he locked down all the airlocks and the vehicle bay launch doors. Changed the security codes too. I discovered this yesterday. When I asked him this morning why he did it, he just mumbled something about being in deep space and crew safety and then wouldn’t talk about it anymore.” Sam frowned, “I’m off to talk to Garth about over riding Dean’s security codes though.” Sam looked puzzled, “I just can’t get why Dean would do something like that.” Sam took a breath, “Anyway, Sam Winchester, signing out.”

Sam stood up away from his personal computer grid in his cabin just as there was a knock on his door. He moved the short distance to the door activation buttons and pressed one. The door shuttled aside  with a soft air compressed hushed sound as it opened.

Jimmy was standing there with one of his med tablets in hand, “Sorry to bother you but I’m getting a weird static interference in the med lab that’s affecting my computer grid and my tablets. Garth is in there now but he asked me to come find you.”

“Yea, sure.” Sam grabbed a jacket from a hook by the door, then pressed the door closure button after he stepped into the passage way. “Why didn’t you guys just call me over the ship’s intercom?”

“Garth felt it would be more… prudent…to get you in person.“ Jimmy fell in step with Sam as they walked through the crew quarters passage way. “Dean’s already down there as well. Garth thinks the ship is being tracked.”

Sam stopped briefly and looked at Jimmy, “Tracked?”

“Garth thinks the source of the static in my lab is from an astro beacon.” Jimmy frowned as if he understood what Garth was getting at, but wasn’t familiar with the term in question.

“Who would want to track us…. I mean….” Realization flooded across Sam’s face then and he said with some sarcasm in his voice, “Right, we’re only off to find one of the legendary lost space expeditions with a brand new type of tessering drive in the ship.” He mocked a devil-may-care look, “Yea, no one would give a crap about that.” Jimmy just raised his eyebrows in an ‘exactly’ face and continued with Sam to the medical bay.

 

 

————————————————————————————-

 

 

They arrived to find the entire front panel of the med bay’s computer grid detached from the wall and lying on the floor. Garth’s thin legs stuck out from a service duct hole at the bottom, while Dean was crouched beside it holding an old looking device that had two green display screens and several knobs on its face.

“You’re almost there. It’s about …there there there! Next to your left hand.” Dean called out, his eyes riveted to the display screens on the device he held.

“I see it.” Garth called back, “Hand me a 56 spanner.” One of his hands wriggled its way out of the service duct to wave around randomly. Dean reached into the tool box sitting open next to him and pulled out a thing that looked like a doubled ended wrench that had almost pincher like protrusions. He placed it into Garth’s hand and then it and the hand vanished into the duct.

Sam stood near Dean now, his hands folded over his chest. Dean looked up, and the two of them held a silent conversation with just their facial expressions. Then Dean glanced at Jimmy, gave him a weak smile and went back to watching the display screens.

A few moments later Garth started wiggling back out, and Sam took hold of both of Garth’s feet to assist in pulling him free. When Garth sat up, he held a spherical item in his hands and the 56 spanner in his teeth. The sphere was matte dark grey and had several low blinking lights on it, as well as a tiny dish mounted on the top. Carefully he stood and walked over to one of the med exam tables. With great care he placed the item down.

Dean brought the tool box over and handed it to Garth. Garth set that next to the sphere and spat out the 56 spanner into the tool box. He pulled out a small screwdriver and a little suction cup with a handle on it. He fixed the suction cup to one side and held the sphere firmly. Then he began to loosen the tiny screws around the center of the sphere.

Sam and Dean stood together on the opposite side of the exam table from Garth. Jimmy remained where he was by the door, his attention divided by watching Garth, and watching the brothers watch Garth.

Once Garth had the screws out, he carefully separated the two halves of the sphere and laid them side by side. Glittering transparent wires and small computer chips filled the interior of the thing. Garth put the tools down and began poking about the wires with his bare fingers. He leaned in closer and studied what he was looking at. Finally he looked over at Jimmy and motioned him to come closer. Jimmy approached as asked. Garth peeled a hole in between all the wires and chips to point to a thin miniscule gel membrane sitting in the center.

“See that?” Garth said quietly and Jimmy nodded that he did, “Under that is a tumor that needs to be extracted with precision. Can you surgically remove it?”

Jimmy gave Sam and Dean a sideways glance, then looked at Garth as if he was asking for a simple crayon drawing that any child could do. Jimmy then moved to a drawer along the wall and got out two scalpels and some clamps. He returned to Garth’s side and used the clamps to take over holding the glittering wires aside. Then he pulled a small glass disc from his pocket and unfolded it into what looked like thin wire rimmed magnifying glasses. He perched those on his nose and looked through them as he worked. After several long silent moments, Jimmy lifted one of the scalpels out. On its tip sat a small gel coated nugget that was shimmering with a dull blue light.

Garth let out a small sigh of relief, “That’s the power system. The device is offline now, but we’ll have to jettison the power source into space. It produces too much radiation outside of that gel to be safe.” Garth removed a small metal tray from the tool box and offered it to Jimmy to place the little glowing nugget in. “I’ll take it down to the landing dock and just flush it out of the airlock there….”

Sam smirked and looked at Dean, “Better let Dean do it then.”

Jimmy and Garth moved their puzzled expressions from Sam to Dean. Garth opened his mouth first to ask why and Dean just looked uncomfortable.

“Yes Dean, tell them why…”Sam had a self satisfied twitch of mirth edging on his lips.

Dean tossed Sam a hateful glare then softened his look and said, “I changed all the codes on the airlocks.”

Garth looked more confused, “What for? Why would you do that?”

“Garth can you override them and reprogram new ones?” Jimmy interrupted. His face was cold as stone as he stared hard at Dean. Dean met that look with a ‘what else was I supposed to do?’ face aimed back at Jimmy. “I’d like to have a word alone with our Captain.”

“Yea sure…”Garth cradled the metal tray with the power nugget inside, gave Sam a helpless look and left the med bay. Sam followed behind, but paused at the door to look back at Dean and Jimmy, and at the scalpel still in Jimmy’s hand. Then he shook his head and left.

Jimmy gripped onto the scalpel and with practiced control placed it neatly next to the other tools and the opened gutted sphere. He slowly walked around the exam table, his empty hands open and exposed to Dean. But Dean slowly back away anyway because the hard look in Jimmy’s eyes hadn’t abated. Jimmy closed the space between them and shoved his face up to Dean’s. “Do you know you could endanger the whole crew’s lives by not having those access codes available? Those are the doors out of this place. What if there was a radiation leak and we needed to get into the EVAs or the suits and get off the ship?! What if there was a fire and we needed to flush the air out through one of the vehicle bay doors?! How could you be so reckless?!” Jimmy stopped with his nose nearly touching Dean’s. “All because you are trying to control when I punch my own ticket?!”

Dean had been looking sick with guilt up until Jimmy brought out that last bit, then his defensive ire kicked up and he planted his hands against Jimmy’s chest and shoved him back, “Yes! All because I don’t want one of my crew ‘talking a walk’ out into the vast on my watch! I had to watch my mother float out there and I won’t see anyone else do it.” Dean kept pushing with small sharp shoves, moving Jimmy back until he was flattened against the wall beside the exit door, “And I wasn’t placing the crew in danger… Sam would have those codes and so would Garth. And Benny too. Just not YOU!!” Dean pinned Jimmy against the wall, his eyes hot and angry.

Jimmy, taken aback by Dean’s reaction, could only knit up his brows in silence. His eyes met Dean’s with indignation but he said nothing.

“…and quit calling me ‘Captain’…”Dean’s anger started to fade when he saw how close he had placed himself to Jimmy. His eyes fell from Jimmy’s to Jimmy’s mouth and he spent a full long moment just hovering there. Dean could feel his stomach twisting up in warm anticipation and he flexed his grip on Jimmy’s shoulders.

“….do it….” Jimmy whispered and that’s all Dean needed to hear. He crushed his body against Jimmy’s and smothered their mouths together.

There was no grace in what came next. No tenderness. No sentiment. It was animalistic, raw and almost brutal. Their primal sexual need for each other simply unleashed and it poured over Dean and Jimmy like a white hot fire. They tore at each others skin with their mouths as they clawed away their clothing with their hands. They rutted against each other with guttural sounds caught in their throats, and they shattered together as they ejaculated in each others grip. Panting and spent they had shoved away from each other when it was over. Jimmy fled back to his cabin and left Dean to sink to his knees alone on the medical bay floor.

This is the way it went in the following days too. They would find themselves alone together, often by accident, and they would collide grappling roughly until they found physical release. They never conversed or even exchanged any pleasantries. The only word either of them spoke in the heat of the moment to each other, besides “now”, was that Jimmy still called Dean “Captain”.

None of this went unnoticed, but because it didn’t affect the rest of the crew in any remarkable way no one commented about it to either man.


	8. And then they found the Ellie Arroway

One evening Jimmy had bent Dean over one of the exam tables in the medical bay, taking his pleasure fast and rough. When they were finished Jimmy had pulled up the trouser part of his jumpsuit and just turned away to busy himself at his computer grid as he waited for Dean to leave. But Dean didn’t leave. Instead he pulled on his jumpsuit, zipped it closed and leaned against the exam table to watch Jimmy.

“I get it you know. The whole ‘don’t want to die in pain trapped in a body I don’t have control over’ thing. I get that. And I get why dropping yourself in the vast is an attractive option. Death in five minutes or less…. In 15 seconds alone you’re passed out because your lungs are now exchanging oxygen out of the blood.” Dean shrugged and held his palms up, “But you left…a husband?! You left him behind and just took off?”

“I didn’t ‘just take off’” Jimmy mocked Dean’s choice of words slightly.

“And did he have anything to say in that decision?!” Dean pushed away from the exam table but didn’t move closer.

Jimmy turned and gave Dean a flat stare, “I don’t see how this is any of your business.”

“Oh I think it is. As your ‘Captain’” Dean returned the mocking tone, “I should know the motivations of my crew. I think as you said to Benny during his exam….’Part of being a good Doctor….. in my case ‘Captain’ as you seem to enjoy calling me…. is understanding the people under your care. Knowing what makes them tick. What do they fear? What accelerates their stress levels? What relaxes them? What brings them joy? In crisis situations information like this can mean the difference between life and death…”He finished quoting Jimmy nearly word for word.

“You were eaves dropping?” Jimmy’s eyes started to darken as he grew annoyed.

“I was waiting out in the passage way for you to finish. It wasn’t like the fucking door was sealed shut.”Dean did his best snarky head wiggle and raised his brows at Jimmy.”Stop dancing around the issue and tell me what happened.”

“No.” Anger flared in Jimmy’s eyes and he turned away from Dean to look back to the computer grid.

Surprised and taken slightly aback, Dean just blinked a moment, but when he started to speak Jimmy whirled around and pointed to the door, “Get out. We’re done. And I mean done. I’ll be civil to you… business professional… but as far as our personal relationship goes… whatever it was… it’s over.” Jimmy turned his back on Dean and resumed his work at the computer grid. “I’m never touching you again.” He said coldly.

Dean balked for a moment, his mouth hanging open. Disappointment flickered across his face, and then some deeper pain joined it. He turned quickly and strode to the door. He reached for the door closing button and hit it hard with a smack as he left.

Several moments passed and Jimmy looked down at his left hand. It was twisted slightly in an unnatural gesture and he couldn’t get it to relax. He took a deep shaky breath and went back to his work.

———————————————————

‘Baby’ and her crew arrived at the co-ordinates that the probes had brought back for the HPS, and there she was, The Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Arroway.

She hung there in the vast, unchanged for all her long lost years. She was twice the size of ‘Baby’ and completely dark and still. She was lean and beautiful with sweeping curved lines and an elegant design structure. Her running lights sat dead but the identification numbers and the name marked on her hull shone reflecting off ‘Baby’s own lights.

Dean made a slow round about pass on low engine speed while Sam, Benny and Chuck did a visual sweep with telelenses and macrogoggles as they stood in the huge observation deck on ‘Baby’s roof. Garth began an extensive scan from his station looking for radiation signatures or leaks and any other energy signals on the Arroway.

“No heat sigs.”Garth spoke out over his ship wide mic. “No energy signatures. Her power is completely offline… no surprises there.” He kept reading the data that was coming back from the scans, “Got carbon traces though, as well as a bunch of other chemical readings.” He readjusted one of his scans and then looked at the data again, “Getting some odd feed back here on some of the molecular structures…”

Dean parked ‘Baby’ parallel to the Arroway with about 400 meters between the two ships. He leaned forward out of the pilots chair a moment and took a long hard look at the Arroway through the bridge windows, “Garth when you are done figuring that out, I need you to get with Sam to run some other numbers. We may have a small problem on our hands.”

Garth looked over at Dean, “Oh?”

“She’s bigger than the HPS told us she’d be. What was the safe bubble size Christina gave us for towing things during tessering?” Dean kept looking over the Arroway, his brows bent down and his eyes wide.

“I’ll check it. You don’t think we can just coast her alongside us?” Garth swung his seat around to face Dean.

“No. I don’t.” Dean frowned and looked back to Garth, “But I think I have an idea how we can get her back in one piece. Just gonna take a bit of work.”

“Hey kids,” Chuck’s ship wide mic crackled on, “No hull damage that we could see on the visual sweep. There is a starboard air lock that is sitting wide open and one of the larger bay doors looks as if it’s about 30% open as well. Just an FYI.”

Garth swung back to look at his console, “I’ll run a deep scan of the ship but it’ll take a full 18 hours.”

“Go for it. We can wait.” Dean walked over to Garth and rubbed his shoulders roughly but playfully. It made Garth smile.

“Knowledge is power bro…” Garth grinned.

“You know it.” Dean grinned back, then turned and left.

———————————————————

Jimmy had been listening to the on board chatter over the ship wide mics. The whole time Baby had been canvassing the Arroway with the crew busy at their posts, Jimmy had been at the lockers in the vehicle bay checking the spacesuits and running a diagnostic on their life support systems. Everything checked out fine, the suits were in perfect order. However with his left hand useless now, it had taken him twice as long to complete the task.

Jimmy was beyond irritable and frustrated. At one point he slammed his left hand against the metal rack holding one of the suits up, and then bent over wincing and cursing from the pain. When he tried to shake it off, the pain just seemed to deepen and travel up into his forearm.

He was so preoccupied with his task and his troublesome hand that he didn’t see one of the shadows behind him flicker. It shivered, shifted and then folded outward. It uncoiled in stark short jags into a human shape forming a head, arms and legs. It flickered again and it was suddenly on the other side of the vehicle bay. It turned and seemed to regard Jimmy then.

Jimmy unplugged his tablet from the final space suit and began to coil the sensory cord into a tidy figure eight. But he fumbled with it and then dropped it, cursing again. He bent over and the shadow form flickered once more, appearing behind him. It raised one arm like appendage slowly and passed it over Jimmy in a jerking motion without touching him. Then it flickered again and vanished. He stood and shivered, frowning a moment. When he turned around, there was nothing behind him.

————————————————————

Far off, just out beyond the Epsilon Eridani’s central sun, another bright star sat burning in close orbit. It was very tiny, nearly half the size of Earth’s own star Sol. It quivered, then flared and sent three bright prominences leaping out away from it. But instead of these white flaming plumes returning back into the tiny star, they soared away into the vast. They arced in unison and swerved around into a tight three point triangular formation. Then they shot out together like comets across the Epsilon Eridani system and hurtled across straight towards the Arroway and ‘Baby’.


	9. Boom! Shake Shake the Room!

That evening Jimmy didn’t join the crew for dinner and Dean went looking for him. He found Jimmy up in the huge observation deck on ‘Baby’s roof. Jimmy was faced out away from the Arroway, instead his gaze was trained towards the system’s central sun, its mini sun in orbit and some of the larger gas giant planets in their rotation. He had his arms folded in front of him and he was leaning on the ledge where the wall met with the thick plastecine glass hybrid bubble that formed the huge over arcing window.

The view was spectacular. One could see a wide swath of the Milky Way glittering and shimmering like a billion rainbow coloured fireflies smeared across a vast canvas of velvet black.

Dean mounted the steps up onto the deck making a bit of noise to alert his presence. He paused just at the top, his left foot planted on the deck, but his right foot held a step or two down. He leaned both arms on the top of his left thigh and cleared his throat.

Jimmy glanced over his shoulder at Dean briefly and then returned to looking out into the vast.

“You shouldn’t skip a meal just because of me.” Dean said quietly.

Jimmy let out a small sigh and turned a bit so he was leaning on his left arm only, “I didn’t. I had a protein fiber bar thing…. I just wasn’t that hungry.”

Dean just nodded, then straightened and made as if to leave.

“Wait…”Jimmy said and stood up fully. He held out his recently deformed left hand in front of him, displaying and turning it slightly so Dean could get a good look. “It’s started.”

The expression on Dean’s face went from passive to concerned shock in a flicker of a heartbeat. He came up onto the deck and walked to face Jimmy. “Hurts?”

“More every hour.”Jimmy marveled at it a moment more, “I’ve started a standard dose of morphine repeated every four hours but… the hand is useless.”He dropped it to his side and looked Dean square in the eye, “I… I didn’t leave my husband. He kicked me out.”

Dean looked down to Jimmy’s hand and then back up at Jimmy, disgust crept over his face, “What? How could he do that?” Jimmy took a deep breath and moved back to leaning on the ledge, and he made room for Dean. Dean paused, and then joined him.

“Andrew and I met in med school. Top of our class, the brightest minds in Bṛhaspati. We’d do shifts together in the hospital and we’d fuck each other senseless in any storage closet we could find during our breaks. Everything was great for a long time. We got married, even bought a garden plot in one of the agriculture domes.” Jimmy smiled gently and his eyes roamed the stars before them, “Then I was offered a research position with the hospital and Andrew started in the ER. Our schedules never meshed. We would go for whole weeks without seeing each other. We made new friends, grew apart. But we still loved each other and when we did see each other, vowed to work at sticking the rough patches out. Then the accident happened. Crazy radiation blast in the lab. All six of us were affected. God, one of my colleagues was pregnant too. She lost the baby within days.” Jimmy wiped away the moisture growing in the corners of his eyes. “Around about then Andrew seemed to really pull away. When I finally confronted him about it, he confessed that he didn’t desire me anymore… physically… He knew it was irrational, but he saw me as ‘imperfect’. Tainted. And then he told me he couldn’t have me in his life anymore.” Jimmy closed his eyes and took in a slow deep trembling breath. “He asked me to leave his life. Asked me to never speak to him again, never see him again. When I would see him at hospital events, he acted as if I was a stranger he had never met. New staff had no clue we were ever involved.” He swallowed hard, “I can’t believe I used almost the same words on you that he used on me.”

“I’m never touching you again.” Jimmy’s breath hitched slightly and he opened his tear smeared eyes. They sparkled mutely as they reflected Epsilon Eridani’s central sun and its nearby mini sun. Then he looked directly at Dean, “I’m sorry.”

And he meant it.

 

——————————————————

 

[*music: Boom! Shake Shake the Room](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw_KI5Lgg9k)

“Yo back up now and give a brother room………. The fuse is lit and I’m about to go BOOM!…… Mercy mercy mercy me……. My life is a cage but on stage I’m free……..” Garth was inside one of the one man EVAs piloting it. He wore the usual jumpsuit, this time his ‘safety orange’ coloured one. He was also wearing an old beat up straw cowboy hat and he was jamming out to the music he had piped into the cockpit. He hit the thrusters on the EVA and he shot gracefully out through ‘Baby’s open vehicle bay doors. Then he killed the thrusters and with the maneuvering jets, shuttled the small machine back around to face the open vehicle bay. “Oh and yo let’s get just one thing clear……. There’s only one reason why I came here…..”

There on the landing area waiting were Dean, Sam and Benny in space suits. They were tethered loosely together by a flexible bungee cable. Benny made a gentle push off the landing pad and he began to float up and out through the bay doors. When he was about three or four meters out, Sam pushed off next and then after the same space was achieved Dean followed.

Garth extended a grappling arm and then swung it behind the EVA. He used the maneuvering jets to turn around slightly, so that Benny was aimed for the arm. Benny coasted to the arm, grabbed it, and then he tied the extra end of the tether cord to the arm. Garth eased the thrusters forward slowly, and the tether cord pulled the three space suited men along behind it.

 “I came here tonight to hear the crowd go…… Boom! shake-shake-shake the room…..” Garth nodded with a smile as he glanced at one of the rear view mirrors installed to the sides of the EVA. He could see all three men trailing behind the EVA. He began to guide the EVA over towards the Ellie Arroway.

Inside ‘Baby’, Chuck and Jimmy waited on the bridge. Chuck was seated in Garth’s seat at the com link while Jimmy just paced slightly with his left hand tucked inconspicuously under his right arm. Chuck grooved a little in his chair to the music being piped in from Garth’s EVA.

“Why the music…?” Jimmy asked.

“Oh, when you’re out in the space suits, all you can hear is your breathing apparatus.”Chuck made these long loud push in, push out breaths.”Sam says ‘It’s all Darth Vader in there’. Anyway, when you go out for these long coasts like this and there is nothing but the whole of the vast all around you, it helps to have something else to focus on… besides your own creepy sounding breathing.”

Jimmy nodded and brought his right hand up to his mouth. He began to nibble lightly, but nervously, on a knuckle. “I guess the absence of other sounds would make it unnerving.” He paced, then paused, “How many of these kinds of runs have they done?”

“Well, Benny’s been suiting since he was barely 20 and Dean since he was 14. I think Sam started when he was 16 though I may be wrong.” Chuck glanced over his shoulder at Jimmy, “So basically thousands of times.”It was then that Chuck noticed Jimmy pacing and he said to Jimmy, “Relax. This is just a recon. It won’t get hairy until they start bringing the big industrial grade torches, lasers, saws and drills with them.” Jimmy just raised one eyebrow at Chuck and it made Chuck laugh.

“Okaaaay…. Momma duck and ducklings all here at the open starboard airlock. Looks like it was an emergency lock that got blown out…. I’m seeing scoring from fire.” Garth closed slowly on the opening in the side of the Arroway. It was about four meters wide and just about the same distance high. He wheeled a spot light around to completely illuminate the opening. Dark charred streaks decorated the edges of the opening, flaring out away from it. Garth eased the EVA to sit directly in front of the opening and out about six meters. He shut down the jets just hovered there.

Benny, Sam and Dean used the smaller jets on their suits to coast around Garth’s EVA like white plump ghosts. Benny unhooked a vibration axe from his tool belt and Sam brought up his laser rifle. They each took a position on either side of the opening. Dean came up from the bottom to slowly rise across the entry, shining his own helmet spot light deeper into the cavity.

Just inside they could see several wrecked spacesuits hanging burnt and broken along one wall. On the far side the interior air lock remained sealed.

“That could be a good sign.” Dean said over his com link. “We might not have a hull breach.” After another pause to give the entry another once over, “I’m goin’ in.”

Sam steadied his rifle and Benny sidled closer, his axe hefted at the ready. Dean gave a short burst on his jets and floated in. He engaged the magnetic boots on the metal floor and stopped himself abruptly. Then he shuffled to the interior air lock and peered through the small porthole window in its center.

“There’s another short passage way…. With more suits. Those look intact from here… and the bulkhead door on the other end is sealed.” Dean turned around as best as he could in his bulky space suit and gave the men behind him a thumbs up.

“Cypher unlocking code is ready when you are Dean.” Chuck’s voice fizzed over the com link.

Dean unhooked a small hand sized computer box from his belt and snapped it over the airlock controls. “Send the code through Chuck.”He punched one button and waited. A digital display appeared on the front of the box and it began to run through a series of binary patterns. Soon the patterns were replaced with coloured squares and the seal on the airlock released. Dean removed the computer box and touched the airlock door opening mechanism. The door slid open effortlessly.

“We’re in.”


	10. Darkness and Light

As Garth hovered outside, Dean, Sam and Benny explored the first section of the Arroway. From the emergency escape airlock, they had found their way to the crew quarters, then to the living areas where kitchen and eating stations had been installed. Then they found the showers and the WCs, and then personal storage areas marked with the names of the crew. Past that were recreational areas with sporting courts and a small track one could use for running or cycling. In the center of the track was an area that looked as if a park had over grown and then died…. And then like everything else organic on the ship had crusted into columns of ashen dust.

At this Sam paused and pointed to the other two the large solar light unit in the roof of the room, “Now there is something that would be nice to get a hold of.”

Dean chuckled and looked with amused affection at his brother, “You’ve started making a list haven’t you? Of the things you are going to make the HPS give us when we get back.”

“Damn straight.” Sam nodded with a small satisfied smile.

It took them a full hour to explore the crew living areas, stopping to try to access any computer terminal they could find, but without any luck. Chuck piped in to explain that it was possible this ship was always run from one central power source, instead of several smaller independent power grids like later ships had.

“No wonder their expedition went dead inna water.” Benny murmered. “We should probably split up boys. Cover more ground?” They had done this a hundred times on a hundred other salvage jobs.

Dean agreed, “Sam why don’t you take the next level up, Benny next one down. I’m going to see if I can get to the engine section.”

Benny and Sam both gave a thumbs up and they separated.

Outside Garth waited near to the entry. He had pulled up other flood lights on the outside of the EVA and had pointed them in various directions to illuminate into any window portals nearby. His theory was that it would bleed into the inside and give the guys some extra light. After a moment one of the upper level portals shone light back out, almost brighter than anything Garth had on the EVA. He flashed his light back, one two three times, then kept the light steady. The light from inside the window increased, and then dimmed also three times as if in answer to Garth.

“Yea, I see you Sam,” Garth chuckled.

“What are you talking about Garth?” Sam buzzed back over the com link.

“I saw your signal through the window on the level you are on.” Garth buzzed back.

There was a pause, “Garth….I’m not on that side of the ship….”Sam sounded puzzled. “Benny is that you?”

“Nah. I’m low. Found their EVAs in their vehicle bay. I’m checking on th’ cracked open bay door we saw earlier.” Benny called back.

“DEAN?!” Sam called over the com link.

Silence.

Garth abandoned the entry way and hit on the EVAs thrusters and jets to get him up alongside the widow with all the light as fast as he could. The light was still pouring out bright and golden. “I’m on my way to the source of the light now Sam. Benny you keep where you are… Sam can you make your way to this side of the ship?!”

“Coming!!” Sam huffed, already in motion.

 

———————————————————-

 

Back on ‘Baby’ Jimmy was already running towards the medical bay for his portable kits. Chuck was hollering at him over the ship wide com link that it was no big deal, sometimes the com links on the suits died. Or more than likely Dean was pranking everyone for a laugh. Jimmy heard but still went for his med gear with seriousness. In his mind it didn’t matter. It was his job to be there if someone was hurt and while most of his body was working as it should be; he was going to do his job.

Jimmy however, was stopped dead in his tracks when he rounded the medical bay door.

In the center of the room a dark shape flickered and then reformed. It was shaped like a man with a head, torso and leg like appendages. As it flickered in and out again, arm like shapes appeared. It swiveled unnaturally and leaned in Jimmy’s direction. Jimmy felt the air around him push away and suck back into the passageway as the shape flickered closer.

Jimmy backed quickly into the passageway, “CHUCK!!” he tried to scream but all the sound around him was broken, muted and suppressed. The sound of his feet against the passageway metal was hollow and gone. The pulse pounding in his ears was louder than ever as his heart rate shot up.

The head on the thing began to stretch as a hole started to form in its center. A high squealing sound started to shiver through the air and the louder it got the more it split into Jimmy’s head. Jimmy threw his hands over his ears and stumbled further back into the passage way.

The form flickered again, like a projection from an antique video reel and followed Jimmy out into the hallway. The hole in its head had morphed into a spiraling twist that dropped back away into nothingness. Jimmy could feel all the air in the passageway being sucked into that swirling hole.

Jimmy got his feet under him and he turned and ran, sprinting for the bulkhead at the end of the passageway. He nearly skid past once he was through and he frantically grabbed for the door closure switch. He hit it and nothing happened.

The sound coming from the thing had burned down into a loud rumbling roar as the air was sucked back into its maw. It flickered again coming down the hall at Jimmy with slow purposefulness. It tilted its head and the arm appendages began to flush back behind it giving it the appearance of rushing forward even when its speed never increased.

“J…Jim…..JIMMY!” Chuck’s voice crackled over the inter ship com link, “Wha…g…..own th-there?!?!”

“CHUCK!” Jimmy screamed and tried to get the door to close again, “SHUT THE BULKHEADS! SHUT ALL THE BULKHEADS!!” Jimmy jumped back away from the door and moved quickly down the passage way.

There was a low groan and the emergency door system snapped the bulkhead door shut. The air around Jimmy quieted but he could still hear the rush of the air being sucked violently from the other passageway beyond. Breathing hard Jimmy ran up to look through the small port window in the bulkhead door. Beyond it the form was twisting and bowing its body into strange contorted gestures. The vacuum hole in its head was still open and was still pulling all the air out of that passage.

Suddenly the emergency flood lights came blasting on in the passages. Jimmy had to shield his eyes a moment, and then squinted back through the door port window. The form was shaking violently now and the hole in its head was gone. It became ridged and seemed to solidify. The super high pitched sound came back, like a raging scream. Then abruptly the form shattered completely showering the passageway with hundreds of tiny shiny black shards.

Then everything was quiet.

Jimmy slumped down against the wall beside the bulkhead door and tried to slow his panicked breath, “It’s ….. gone…” He heaved a little trying to draw his breathing down to calm himself as he spoke over his personal com link at his collar, “Chuck?”

“What the fuck was going on down there?! I had a sudden rapid drop in air continuity down by the medical bay that lit up my warning sensors like a super nova!” Chuck’s shaken voice came over the ship’s inter com link.

“I don’t know… I don’t know….”Jimmy rested his head back against the passage way wall. “I just know it’s gone….”

 

————————————————

 

Back on the Ellie Arroway Dean had been tapping at his wrist controls trying to get his com link up and running again. He had full power in his suit but he couldn’t get the static out of his com. Just as he was about to turn and start heading back to where Garth was waiting, all the lights on his suit clipped off abruptly as well. He found himself standing in complete darkness with a strange fuzzing crackled static sound filling his com.

“Son of a bitch….”

Very very slowly he stepped closer to the nearest wall he remembered seeing and stretched out his hand to find it. Soon his gloved palm was resting against the solid metal surface. He took a moment and looked around. Behind him, he could see a sliver of light coming from somewhere down that passage. Thinking it was Garth shining one of his floods through a port window, Dean began to slowly move toward it. He took his time, kept his hand against the wall. Dean figured if he could get to one of those ports, he could visually signal Garth, and Garth would send Sam or Benny to help guide him out.

 

—————————————-

 

Sam moved as rapidly down the corridor as he could pull himself. He had shut off his magnet boots and was now using the lack of gravity to speed his way along. He repelled, pulled and pushed himself as fast has his muscles would go. He cruised past the science labs, the Captain’s quarters, and the NAV SAT room. All these he made a quick mental note of their location, half so he wouldn’t get lost and half so that he could return to them later. Soon he rounded a corner into the passageway that was filled with golden shimmering light.

It was like sunlight glittering on the surface of water. Sam dropped the polarized shield on his face plate to be able to see through the light. He halted himself, floating in the passageway.

Two humanoid figures made entirely of that light floated near the entry to the room Garth said was the source of the signal he had received. They were the source of the light, emanating it and radiating it as if they were small suns but without the heat. One of the figures pivoted around to face Sam. It tilted its head and brought up one hand to approximately where its mouth might be. It seemed to shimmer a little, or jiggle as if it were experiencing mirth. The other one floated right up to Sam, curved itself like a baby floating in a womb and then straightened. It gestured to Sam and then looked back at the other one.

All Sam could do was float there, wide eyed with his breath caught in his throat.

Suddenly they both turned their bodies in the direction of ‘Baby’. They shimmered brighter and brighter and Sam had to turn his head away because the shield on his face plate ceased to be strong enough. When he looked back, the beings of light were gone.


	11. Space Angels

Dean stopped in his slow walk down the passage way towards the light source. He had turned off his com link, annoyed with the buzzing hiss crackling over it. This meant that if he could breathe very slowly and calmly he could pick up some noises outside his suit. Right now he didn’t even need to do that. The high pitched squealing sound that was coming from somewhere near him was getting loud enough that he could hear it clearly.

He paused a moment and did a slow turn to see what was around him. He was somewhere in the engineering section, near some giant turbines. Dean mused that they were probably the electrical generators by the look of them. The light he had been working his way towards was close enough now that he could make out things in the room he had wandered into. However he still couldn’t seem to find its source.

Dean made a slow cursory walk around the base of one of the turbines, and then stopped when he saw a shadowy human form standing just in the shade of the next turbine over. Dean motioned with his arm, thinking maybe it was Benny but then he held still. Benny would have his lights running surely and this form was somehow….wrong. It didn’t look solid. It seemed to be as if it were made of shadow or just emptiness.

And then it moved. It wheeled with hesitating slowness in Dean’s direction and then it appeared to flicker and vanish only to reappear a few feet closer to Dean. The high pitched squealing sound became louder and Dean began to back up. Behind him the light he had been tracking started to grow brighter, but the empty thing that flickered ever closer clung to the shadows formed by the turbines.

Dean glanced up to see a hatch high above him and he switched off his magnetized boots. He gave a little push and began to float weightlessly towards the service hatch. He flinched however when he saw the shadow form flicker and then appear closer. It floated up to meet him, tucking away inside shadows around the turbines as it came.

Dean abruptly hit his maneuvering jets as it became clear to him that the empty thing was staying out of any light it came near. The light was still growing brighter behind him and to his left now, so he titled his jets and gave each a quick burst to send him floating in the light’s direction.

Suddenly the flickering empty form vanished and reappeared right in front of Dean, using Dean as a shield to keep the light off of it. It swelled slightly and then bowed in, and when it did a vacuous hole manifest in its center. Dean’s jets went useless as the suction from the hole pulled Dean in close. The hole latched onto the front of Dean’s space suit and sealed against it. Dean’s suit groaned and shuddered, and then started to split and crack.

“fuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK….”Dean scrambled to inject emergency sealant inside the suit to retain pressure and oxygen but then it became clear that whatever this thing was, it was acting like a miniature black hole. Dean could see a tiny event horizon forming at the edges of where his suit and the hole met. It was then that he began to gasp. The oxygen from his suit was quickly being sucked away and Dean started to feel the pull of the hole on his body. Pain shot deep and hard through his chest.

That’s when Dean looked into the face of this thing. Hollow absolute abyssal emptiness just echoed through its entire form. He had looked into the heart of a black hole once, and even at its core it had held more light and warmth than this thing did. Dean threw a hand forward as if to push it back away from him, and searing cold stabbed through his hand freezing it. He let out a scream of pain and his vision waivered.

Then, there was light.

Warm glowing beautiful light. It bathed him. Surrounded him. It sank into his body and went deep into his bones. It washed against his skin in a comforting wave. It filled up his heart and lungs, and it burned the freezing cold out of his hand. It swam up and poured into his mouth, radiated into his closed eyes and then submerged his brain. He was completely over taken by this deep pure sense of serenity.

Where the flickering shadow thing had been emptiness and death, this was filled with power and throbbing life. Dean trembled in ecstasy as his mind rolled in on itself in wonderful ways. He felt his head roll back as the smile covering his face grew and grew.

“…I like this death….this is a GOOD death…” Dean thought to himself, enjoying how orgasmic his body was behaving. He was completely unconcerned about the possible reality of his body being crushed and obliterated by a tiny black hole.

“You aren’t dying….”

Dean heard a voice murmur deep inside his mind. It was neither male nor female, but it did have a gentle deep rumble to it.

“I ceased the dark soul’s hold on you. I’m taking you to your ship now. Your suit is damaged.” It said gently, lovingly, “Forgive me for not coming to you sooner….”

“Who are you?” Dean waivered. His mind was drunk with joy.

All it said was “Castiel” and then Dean floated away in a perfect dream.

 

——————————————————————-

 

Dean awoke naked but covered with a med blanket on one of the exam tables in the medical bay. Sam was seated in a chair beside him reading something off his hand held tablet. When Dean stirred Sam looked up and called out to Jimmy. Jimmy appeared in Dean’s peripheral vision and began to check his vitals.

“How you feel Dean?” Sam’s face was bunched up with concern.

Dean’s body still hummed a little warmly from whatever had been buzzing through his body from the light, “Awesome. Whatever drugs Doc gave me… WOW. Doc we should use those for recreation.”

Jimmy frowned, “I haven’t given you anything.”

“Huh?” Dean tried to sit up and Sam pressed him back down prone again.

“Dean, we couldn’t find you on the Arroway. You just vanished and then turned up on the bridge. Your space suit was crushed… the front was twisted like a corkscrew.” Sam ran his hand through his hair, “Benny had to cut you out of your suit. Do you remember anything at all?”

Dean sighed and then slowly his memories began to clear and come back to him. His gaze flickered to Sam and then Jimmy, and then his eyes darkened. “…… yea. I remember.”

He told them about losing his com and his lights. He told them in detail about following the light, and then finding the empty flickering thing near the turbines. He told them about the miniature black hole and about how he was sure he was a dead man. But then he just said he was covered in light mysteriously. He kept the rest secret. He told them he really didn’t remember leaving the Arroway or returning to ‘Baby’.

Sam was silent the whole time he listened. When Dean was done, Jimmy gave the details on his encounter with the shadowy flickering thing and about how it had shattered when it was exposed to intense light. “I have the shards saved in a sealed container. They appear to be completely inert.”

“Light….” Sam paced a little, “When I was looking for Dean I found two beings MADE of light, not shadow or black holes. They seemed….harmless. Childlike even. They even appeared to try to communicate with me.”

“I think we may have encountered two new species today.” Jimmy said and folded his arms in front of his chest, “I wonder if this is what the original expedition found when they came to this system. We should get the Arroway’s logs as soon as possible.”

“I’m having Benny up the amps on our personal spot lights on our suits and Garth is doing the same for the EVAs. Seems the negative entities don’t like the light, so that should give us some protection.” Sam came to stand beside the exam table.

“We should have hand held units for walking around on Baby. “Dean lifted a finger and twirled it slowly about in the air, “And we gotta find some way of communicating with those….those…” Dean paused and thought a moment, “Those space angels.”

“Dean, they aren’t ‘space angels’…”Sam tried to frown but his mouth curved slightly with amusement.

“Shut up Sammy,” Dean smiled as he began to drift off to sleep, “…saved my life….fuckin’ space angels to me.”


	12. Arroway's Secret

“Light this sucker up!!”Dean called, his voice hinted with a cocky laugh. He was in his new space suit and it was covered in a mesh overlay of thousands of tiny LED lights that were already shining brightly. It made him look like hundreds of electric fireflies had swarmed and landed all over him. He was at the main console for the engineering section and he was entering the sequence over ride code on its main computer panel. He hit the enter key and the turbines whirred into life. A half moment later and the entire engineering section was flooded with brilliant white light. “Ha HA!! Yea baby….!”

The crew had been working for the past 36 hours on modifying two of their EVAs, their suits, making hand held flood lamps and in fixing the Arroway’s engine turbines so they could light up every part of that ship. They had to gut one of their EVAs and Dean’s old space suit for parts at one point. They had slept in shifts and in pairs, one keeping close watch over the other in case one of the ‘dark souls’ came near.

And they had come.

One had come after Jimmy as he slept, and Chuck shattered it by snapping on both his and Jimmy’s hand held units as it began to suck the air from Jimmy’s cabin. Another had appeared in the galley as they were all having their breakfast. It too was shattered swiftly when the crew had made use of their hand held units.

As they had worked on the Arroway in their new space suits, the LED light modification had been effective it seemed in keeping the things away. Now that the Arroway’s engines were online, and her power was up, the whole ship was coming back to life.

“Garth, what’s the word up there on life support and gravity manufacturing?” Dean hummed over his com link.

“The life support control is a freakin’ mess…. Looks like we’ll still need our ‘disco suits’ while we are over here. The main control terminal for the gravity boot is whack too. Everything on the bridge is just ripped up to hell. Looks like someone took a vibro axe to it.” Garth clucked his tongue, “Seriously dude, it looks like someone was trying to rip the whole bridge up.”

“S’okay. We didn’t really need the Arroway fully on line. Would have been nice but…” Dean shrugged inside his suit, “Sam? Can you access the crew logs from the Captain’s quarters?”

“Doing it now. Got the download feed to ‘Baby’ locked and loaded…”Sam replied, “Captain’s log, medical personnel logs, navigator logs….” Sam chuckled, “and the cook’s log which was actually the last one that was accessed.”

Benny walked over next to Dean as he holstered one of his tools onto his belt, “Now we jus’ got to fix tha vehicle bay door and she’ll be good to travel. I must say, I can’t wait to get the hell outta here.”

“Yea. Same.” Though in the back of his mind, Dean wished he could meet up with one of the ‘space angels’ again before they left. The experience of being in direct contact with the one that called itself ‘Castiel’ had haunted his thoughts since he regained consciousness from it. He cleared his throat and looked back at Benny, “But we have a big task ahead of us…. Remember how Christina told us that the Arroway had to be inside the bubble the drive generated for the tesser?”

“Aye, yea.” Benny frowned a little, picking up on where Dean’s train of thought was going.

“The Arroway is larger than what the HPS said it was. Double in fact. Their intel must have been wrong or something. It won’t fit inside the bubble if it’s just alongside ‘Baby’ for the ride.” Dean gestured by placing his hands side by side, “But if ‘Baby’ piggy backs on the Arroway and we tether the ships together….” Dean placed one hand on top of the other hand, “Then they’ll be in the bubble and we can hop back with no trouble. We don’t have enough fuel to tow her the old fashioned way.”

Benny nodded. Just leaving the Arroway after all this was not an option and he knew it, “Tether, with elastic cord like the ones we use on the space suits? Yea…”Benny slipped his eyes over the turbines and then back to Dean, “We’ll need a lot of it…..”Then his face brightened as an idea came to him, “Oh all the cargo holds on ‘Baby’ have bungee net in there….!” Benny turned immediately and started to leave the engineering area.

“Hold on there Benny…”Dean called, “You have a sleep shift. Get Garth and get some down time. We’ll work on that stuff tomorrow. In fact everyone should get some rest.”

Benny gestured in affirmation and left.

“Garth did you hear that?” Dean called over his com link.

“Roger doger there Dean, already on my way back to ‘Baby’ with Sam. “Garth replied and Dean could hear muffled music over the com from Garth’s suit.

Dean chuckled and started to follow Benny out when a flicker of something to his right caught his eye. It was a shimmer of pale gold light that came from around the back of one of the turbines. It would have been easy to miss with all the bright white light flooding the room now. Dean cautiously made his way around the turbine and stopped.

One of the ‘space angels’ floated there.

Dean’s stomach began to flutter in excitement and a huge smile came over his face. He suddenly felt like a little kid discovering the thrill of their first water slide, or a teen remembering their first perfect kiss. He swallowed a little nervously but kept very still, “Hello?”

The ‘space angel’s light swelled gently and then it returned to its former state. It carefully drew closer to Dean, its head titling slightly as if in curiosity. It gestured as if it would hug Dean, but then it lowered its arms.

“Are you Castiel?” Dean could feel his stomach tighten and his heart beat faster in anticipation.

The ‘space angel’ came very close then, letting its light wash over Dean. It filtered into his suit as before, merging with Dean down into his core. Dean let out a quivering sigh of delight as it touched him, but contact was brief and then the ‘space angel’ withdrew.

“No no…no wait… please…”The absence of the ‘space angels’ touch made Dean feel lost and hollow.

The ‘space angel’ ghosted the tip of its hand to Dean’s lips and then vanished.

“That’s….”Dean frowned, his lips tingling still “….not fair.”

 

—————————————————————————

 

At dinner Sam brought up the screens in the center of the table and they collectively reviewed the logs from the Arrowway crew. They learned that it was a mission that wasn’t expected to return, and that the crew had sent small information drones with updates on their progress back to Earth at repeated intervals. They learned that the Arroway crew had an official entourage of fifty, but that many had brought their spouses along with them as well. Some even brought beloved pets. The Captain had his cherished Basset Hound named ‘Bones’ and the Chief Medical Officer had brought his Beagle ‘Gus’. They learned that for the better part of the trip to the Epsilon Eridani system the journey was fairly uneventful. They had catalogued and recorded asteroids but the vast between Earth’s Sol System and the Epsilon Eridani system was pretty empty. Just before arriving at Epsilon Eridani, the entire ‘Project Argus’ exploration convoy passed through what they believed was just a simple gas cloud filled with the usual chemical compositions.

Sam paused then to bring up a small secondary window in their displays to show them one of the science team’s logs, “But it wasn’t the usual gas cloud. Look….”he highlighted several points of information on the display, “There were particles in that cloud that were unidentified. In some places the logs want to call it ‘dark matter’ and in others they want to classify it as a new chemical. It had an incredibly high density… I’m surprised it didn’t really mess with the convoy ships hulls.”

Sam continued, “It was after that the whole convoy began to experience all kinds of strange anomalies. The ‘Broca’, one of the ships in the convoy lost power completely and it couldn’t be recovered. The ship had to be abandoned entirely and her crew was taken on to other vessels among the ‘Argus’ convoy. Then a few days later the ‘Dragon of Eden’ vanished completely when they were doing routine maintenance on their engine drives. One minute the ship was there, then a bright light was seen by the other ships, then the ‘Dragon’ was gone…. But without an explosion.” Sam paused and scratched the back of his neck, “It gets weirder after that. The Arroway was the only one to make it this far into the Epsilon Eridani system. And that’s when they started having crew member just vanish.”

Sam brought up images of the crew onto the screen. Thirty of them had red dates stamped across their faces along with the word “missing”. The Captain and most of the officers were in that group. Sam kept going, “I have one personal log where one of the wives of the science team swears she saw her husband….and I quote, ‘Burn up into a ball of pure light and float out of their cabin through the wall into space’. But the last log recorded, from one of the cooking staff, is the biggie. They were the last person left alive on the ship.” Sam leaned over and queued up the personal log.

It fizzled on, and a young woman with sandy brown hair was sitting with her hands resting against her cheeks. Her eyes were down cast, and the room she was in was flooded with hundreds of lights that she had obviously taken from all over the ship. When she spoke her voice was delirious and dreamy.

“Don’t know how much longer I can last.” She said, obvious tears just streaming down her face,” I know what the key is. I know what chooses. It’s the soul. The angry ones, the frightened ones, the suspicious or greedy ones…they went dark. The ones who knew love, knew how to love, they went light.” She choked a sob, “Why was I left? I’m a good person. I was, wasn’t I? I’m too scared now.” She looked at the video recorder now, “I’m too alone.” Her eyes shifted and then emptied. They became completely void of everything and that abyss began to creep like a dark vine from her eyes to the rest of her face. She opened her mouth and the first high hard pitch of her scream started. Then the video feed ended and everything was silence.

‘Baby’s crew sat quietly. No one moved or said anything for a long while. Garth wiped the tears openly from his face, not hiding his emotion. Chuck’s head was bowed and he rubbed one hand against his temple. Finally Benny stood up and looked at the others directly. His eyes were moist with emotion and his voice gave a small crack when he first spoke.

“Both them things, the ‘space angels’ and the black hole monsters….they’re the lost crew….” Benny paused a moment and then continued, “But we can’t take the Arroyway back to Earth if them monsters are clinging to the ship. What happens if one of ‘em gets loose on a space station, or in a colony? Or on Earth herself?”

“Nothing good.” Chuck answered as he looked up.

Again the crew sat silently weighing the idea that the negative deadly beings that repeatedly came with aggression towards them had once been members of the Arroway crew, and that they might be infecting the ship itself.

Dean stood abruptly and went to the refrigeration unit. When he came back his arms will laden with bottles of beer. He handed one to each of his crew and he waited for them to pop theirs open. He raised his open beer and gave them all a hard determined glare.

“Fuck ‘em.” Dean declared, “Tomorrow we hunt those sons of bitches down and we shatter each and every last one of them. We are taking the Ellie Arroway….and we’re taking her with no damn hitchhikers.”

He downed his beer, slammed it on the table and walked out.


	13. Children of the Sun

Dean marched up into the huge observation deck on ‘Baby’s roof and shut the entry hatch behind him. Then he locked it from his side. He knew Sam and the others would be down in the galley for a while, talking and going over the information they had retrieved from the Arroway. But he couldn’t focus on any of that right now. He had tasted a drug that made him feel amazing and he was aching for more.

He turned and faced the Arroway silently floating in the vast next to ‘Baby’. He searched it with his eyes, looking for golden hues of light. He leaned against the ledge on the view bubble’s base and swiped his tongue across his lips.

“Castiel….” He called softly, “Can you hear me….?”

There was a long moment when nothing happened and Dean let out a slow weary breath. He turned and slid down with his back against the short wall and buried his face into his hands. He had never felt anything as pure and wonderful in his whole life as when he and that being were connected. He started to tell himself that it was probably just his brain being dumped with an overflow of serotonin, or dopamine. Or both. He started to push the logic of it all into his head. He couldn’t stay out here with them. And he doubted they would come with them when they left. They would stay here, wouldn’t they?

He was feeling his stomach knot up as he forced himself to let go of this notion of interacting with the ‘space angel’ again when he suddenly saw golden light all around him. When he looked up, all three of the ‘space angels’ were in the observation deck with him. Before he could say or do anything, one of them reached out and pressed their hand into Dean’s skull.

It was a different kind of warmth this time. It was soothing and calming, the serenity was there but not the pure wondrous feeling of love like before. And his physical reaction was incredibly different. Instead of his body racing and soaring, it felt centered and peaceful.

A voice spoke inside Dean’s mind. It was gentle and neither masculine nor feminine. “You mean to obliterate the dark souls from here? We cannot help you.”

Dean instantly thought out, “Why not?”

“We do not remember being human. We do not end existences, even those that would end ours. We are children of this sun now. We are unable to help you.” It said all this as a teacher would say it to their favourite student, as if hoping to teach them something new and wonderful. Then Dean saw an image in his head of the small sun orbiting the central sun of the Epsilon Eridani system. It grew closer as if he was flying straight and smooth towards it. As it came clear in his vision he could see it wasn’t a sun at all, but a joyous fluid dance of hundreds of these ‘space angels’ all coming together to form this incredible ball of light. “Our brothers and sisters await us to rejoin their chorus. You can protect yourself now. Be well humans.”

It began to withdraw its hand when Dean’s mind called out, “But wait….Castiel?!” The hand paused and the voice spoke again, “We have no names, I do not understand…..”And then the hand withdrew entirely.

Dean blinked and focused on the three figures of light. One of them had floated back behind the others, its light fluttering. The other two turned to it and reached out with gentle but imploring gestures. The one apart flared its light gently, sweetly. The other two swirled close to it and then they shot way like comets, passing through the glass of the observation deck as if it were made of nothing. They swiftly raced back towards the mini sun, back to their brethren.

Wide eyed Dean looked back to the remaining ‘space angel’. His heart was racing a little now, “You have a name….You’re different than the others?” His mind raced, desperately trying to figure out what was going on.

The ‘space angel’ leaned close to Dean and reached forward as if to touch him, to connect with him again. Dean grinned wide hoping what would come next would help him understand and feel good as it happened. But half a second before it made contact it paused and jerked away.

Dean didn’t get his next thought out of his mouth before all of ‘Baby’ rocked and shuddered. Dean knew that sensation, knew it for what it was and he was on his feet in seconds. His eyes wild as he scrambled to unlock the hatch and open it.

“…explosion!” He breathed out before he flew back down off the observation deck into the ship.

 

——————————————————————

 

The emergency flood lamps were on all over the ship, and the emergency recovery systems were coming on everywhere. Dean raced down through passageways and down stairs trying to locate where the explosion had happened. Behind him, the angel followed and floated close at his heels.

“SAM!! SAM!!” Dean yelled repeatedly into the com link at his collar, “BENNY!! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO MY SHIP?!”

“…ean…De…Dean….”Sam’s voice came halted and choking over the com links. “…bunk….crew quarters…”

Dean passed one of the foam guns used to put out fires stationed along one wall and grabbed it as he ran heading for the crew quarters. When he reached that area, smoke was everywhere. “Sammy?! SAMMY!” He yelled into the chaos.

Benny came stumbling Dean’s way and landed at Dean’s feet. Benny was covered in ash and soot, and there was a hefty gash across his cheek bone. Dean bent to touch Benny, to find a pulse and the ‘space angel’ raced right over Dean into the thick smoke. Benny was alive but unconscious. Dean pulled away the top of his jumpsuit and tied the arms around his waist. Then he removed his tank top and tied it around his mouth to protect him a bit from the smoke. Then he waded into it.

He felt along the passageway wall, his eyes starting to sting from the acrid particles in the air. He could see the ‘angel’s glow darting about ahead of him. Suddenly Dean stumbled and looked down to see Garth lying on the floor. He hooked an arm under Garth and dragged him back to where Dean had left Benny. The smoke started to thin out slightly and Dean could hear the sound of a vacuum pump working. He headed down the passageway again.

He paused when he came to the door to Jimmy’s room where the bulk of the smoke seemed to be coming from and where the glowing gold light from the ‘angel’ seemed to be. Dean bent down and began to feel his way forward but paused when he heard the vacuum pump right behind him.

The air cleared swiftly and Dean looked back to see Sam hoisting the pump in his arms, holding most of its weight at his hip with the discharge tube trailing behind him down the other direction of the passage. Dean moved aside and let Sam into the room ahead of him. In moments the room was cleared of the smoke.

The room was a disaster. It looked like the oxygen relay for the room had exploded. The wall there was bent and contorted with sharp fired scored marks arrayed all around it. Tiny shiny shards were embedded into the wall around it as well. There was a loud clang as Sam dropped the vacuum pump and both men looked over to the ‘angel’ floating near the window.

Below it on the floor sprawled Jimmy’s body. He was burnt badly and he was lying in an unnatural position.

A second later Chuck came barreling into the room with a med kit gripped in his frantic hands. He rushed to Jimmy’s side and dropped, bursting open the med kit as he breathed hard. Sam was beside Chuck instantly, kneeling beside Jimmy and removing an oxygen mask from the med kit.

Dean looked at Jimmy, looked at the ‘angel’ and then bolted from the room to get to the med lab as fast as he could.


	14. Jimmy and Castiel

Seconds wore to minutes, and then minutes to hours and then hours to a day.

Benny and Garth were treated for smoke inhalation, and Benny’s cut was stitched up. Chuck and Sam did what they could, as best as they could with the minimal med training they had between them.

Jimmy however was a different matter. He had been burned badly. Half of his body had been scorched, the flesh ruined beyond anything they could help with on ‘Baby’. Benny had ventured over to the Arroway to see if they had anything in their medical bay to help with the burns, but their technology wasn’t any better than what ‘Baby’ already had on board. Jimmy lay unconscious on one of the exam tables, his vitals weak and fading slowly. Sam kept pumping Jimmy full of morphine in case Jimmy was somehow aware still.

They learned from Benny that one of the black hole monsters, the ‘dark souls’, had come after Jimmy in Jimmy’s cabin. Jimmy and Benny had repelled it, but when it shattered it was too close to the oxygen relay and the relay had exploded. Benny had been thrown into the hall, but Jimmy was right up in front of it. His body had been set on fire and smashed against the far wall from the blast.

It was clear they wouldn’t be able to save Jimmy.

Dean had taken to pacing between the medical bay to be with his crew, and to check on the ‘angel’ who was still hovering in Jimmy’s cabin. The ‘angel’ hadn’t moved around much, and its light had dimmed considerably. Once Dean found the ‘angel’ at Jimmy’s computer grid, it appeared as if it was watching as images flashed rapidly across its screen. Images of Jimmy’s life. Images of Jimmy.

Dean had left and had paced helplessly back to the medical bay.

 

———————————————————————————-

Forty eight hours later Dean wandered into the med lab to take his turn sitting beside Jimmy. Garth stood as he walked in, and closed the book in his hands.

“What’s the book?” Dean asked quietly.

“I found it in Jimmy’s cabin, under his bed. It’s Voltair’s ‘Candide’. Funny stuff.” Garth paused and looked at Jimmy, “I was reading it aloud to him. I dunno.” He gave a small weak smile and a shrug. Then he stepped closer to Dean, “That…’space angel’….Still in Jimmy’s room huh? What does it want? Why is it here? Do you know?”

Dean blinked his eyes wide as he shook his head no, and dropped his gaze. “I know it’s the same one that saved me on the Arroway. I know it calls itself ‘Castiel’. I know it’s different somehow from the ones Sam saw. Past that…” Dean shrugged.

“Chuck tried talking to it, offered it food once even. Benny seems content to just let it be. When I was in there getting the book it just ignored me.” Garth sounded mildly puzzled, and tired.

“Well it’s not hostile, and it’s not hurting anything.” Dean sat down on the stool Garth had occupied when he had walked in. “So I’m not too concerned over it right now.”

“How’s Benny coming with the tether project?” Garth moved towards the door.

“Great actually. Also, He and Sam and I are starting to clean the Arroway of black hole nasties tomorrow. Are you in?” Dean cocked an eyebrow at Garth.

“Hell yea I’m in.” Garth gave his usual smile then and left.

Dean rejoined Jimmy at his side, then laid a light hand on Jimmy’s arm, the side that wasn’t burned.

“We never stood a chance did we?” Dean said softly and gave a light squeeze to Jimmy’s arm. It felt colder than it had before, and Dean glanced up to see Jimmy’s vitals slipping away. Dean blinked back a growing tear and took a deep breath. “Not what you had planned but, it looks like you’re getting your wish.” Then Jimmy was gone. Dean sat there silently, pinching his fingers over his wet eyes.

Slowly it dawned on Dean that the light in the room was glowing more golden. He looked up to see the ‘angel’ floating gracefully through a wall into the room. It paused, hovered across the exam table on Jimmy’s burnt side. It stayed there unmoving as if it were watching Jimmy’s body and Dean, or listening to the music.

Very gradually its light began to swell and brighten. It became voluminous, filling the room and Dean had to close his eyes. The light grew and with it came the ‘angel’s warmth. Dean could feel its calm and the serenity of its essence again. But instead of flowing into Dean, it swarmed around him. He could also feel something else coming from the ‘angel’.

Sadness.

The light continued to intensify and grow. Dean had to bury his face into his arm across his eyes and bow his head. Around him the room began to rumble slightly. He could feel Jimmy’s body shaking under his own hand. Vaguely Dean was aware that someone was calling out to him from somewhere.

The light continued to grow and heave, the room around Dean truly shaking now as sparks spit and showered him. The lights in the room were shattering all around them. Dean bent over Jimmy’s body protectively and he could feel it had risen up off the table to hover there. Jimmy trembled and shook, and Dean gripped onto him hard. The light and the vibration reached a crescendo and then suddenly it was all gone. Jimmy’s body flopped down against the exam table and Dean stood away rubbing his eyes and trying to catch his breath.The emergency lights in the med lab blinked on.

Dean heard footfalls as people came running down the passageway into the medical lab. Dean blinked his eyes open and began to focus when Sam, Benny, Garth and Chuck came rushing into the room each with their hand held lights on. A barrage of questions flooded from their lips and all Dean could do was hold up one hand to halt them. Then he silently pointed to Jimmy.

Jimmy was glowing gently, like an iron just taken out of a fire. The burns across his body were reversing themselves, his skin healing rapidly as the crew watched. The med lab sensors called out that his heart was beating stronger by the minute and that his breathing had returned to normal. A ripple went through Jimmy, the glow faded and he gasped softly…. And then his eyes blinked open.

Sam moved close to Jimmy’s side, “Jimmy?!”

Jimmy sat up suddenly, his back straight and his head canted slightly as he looked at Sam, “Not Jimmy anymore.” His body relaxed a little, as if he was getting accustomed to how it moved. He spoke again and it was Jimmy’s voice, but not Jimmy’s voice. It sounded lower, and rumbled gently. It had a calming warmth to it like sand under a summer sun. “This was Jimmy. As he was leaving I asked if I could have his body. He said I could. He said….” He looked at Sam, Garth, Chuck and Benny, “He said goodbye. And thank you.”

“If you aren’t Jimmy, who are you?!” Sam asked and he swallowed nervously.

Jimmy’s eyes that weren’t Jimmy’s anymore glowed gold gently and then calmed into his deep blues, “I am Castiel.”

Dean gripped his hand against his stomach, and looked at his crew. Then he looked back to Castiel inside Jimmy’s body, “Well….. this is new.”


	15. Rock and Roll

Dean had gathered all of the crew except ‘Jimmy now Castiel’ onto the bridge. They had left the ‘angel inside the dead doctor’ back in the medical lab asking him to rest for a moment. Mainly they wanted to discuss and process this sudden strange turn of events amongst themselves without the new crew member present.

Benny was pacing slowly back and forth across the width of the bridge, gently tapping a large spanner on his shoulder as he walked. Sam had taken his usual spot at the NAV SAT, but instead of sitting in his chair, he half leaned half sat at the edge of the console. Garth was relaxed back in his chair, feet propped up like today was just a normal day. Chuck fidgeted by the doorway and Dean sat turning slowly around and around and around in his pilot seat.

“….I mean… How do we know it didn’t just end Jimmy’s life? How do we know Jimmy was gone when it took over?” Chuck was freaked out and showing it.

“Because I felt Jimmy’s pulse stop before the space angel was even in the room Chuck. It didn’t kill Jimmy…”Dean said flatly and stopped turning, “Jimmy killed Jimmy.”

“What?” Sam looked at his brother.

“Jimmy was dying. He had a mutation in him, down at the cellular level. You can read his med files. It’s in there.” Dean said quietly and sighed out a long weary breath, “That’s why I changed the air lock codes. He told me he was planning on walking off without a suit on one day.”

The bridge became quiet as they each processed that information. Finally Benny spoke up, “Th’ nasty black hole things. Did ya notice how they kinda kept comin’ at Jimmy?”

“Oh man do you think they were attracted to his death wish?” Chuck sucked in a sharp breath.

Dean smirked, “Well that would explain why that one came at me in the engine room.”

Garth just raised an eyebrow at Dean as if to say ‘stop that’. “Whatever the reasons we still have some on the Arroway I’d wager. And we need to get them off and get back home.”

“And what about Jim…er… Castiel?” Chuck gestured back down in the direction of the med lab.

Dean stood and shrugged. “The angel, it chose to hop into a human body for the ride. Maybe it’ll get bored by the time we get the Arroway cleaned out and Baby hooked up. Right now I just want to focus on getting those black hole asshats off my salvage.” Dean raised his brows and looked at each fellow crew member pointedly, “Are you in?”

They were.

 

 

———————————————————————-

 

 

“Rock and roll boys… We are ready on the far side of the moon!” Garth wheeled his EVA around after placing the last cap over the last uncovered window. The crew had removed all the lights from ‘Baby’ and created things to place over all the windows of the Arroway. When tuned on, they would flood each window with light.

“Is all good on tha lower levels, all the Christmas lights are strung…”Benny smiled as he spoke into his com link. He hooked the last wire into the power source junction. On the lower level they had modified the existing lights with amp boosters. Benny figured it would probably blow all of them shortly after they were turned on, but they only needed to flood the lower level with light for a few minutes to be effective.

“We’re ready up here on the main level!” Sam called out over his com link, and gave a friendly pat on the helmet to Chuck who stood beside him in his own space suit. The main level had been wired just as the lower level had been. “Dean?” Sam said over his com link, “Ready?”

Dean pushed a short huff of his breath out and then took a long slow breath in, “Yea. Good to go.” He stood in near darkness in the center of the jogging track near the edge of the decayed parkway. The only light being a small weak hand held glow stick in his left hand. The whole ship had been wired to blast intense white light through every hallway and room except this one. “So happy I could be the bait here….” He grumbled under his breath.

Sam’s voice came over the com link, “Garth! Go!”

Garth hit a button inside his EVA and all the light caps over the windows came on, soft at first and then with increasing intense brightness. They showered all the windows with pure light. Garth then dropped the EVA down to be level with the vehicle bay door to wait.

“Benny, hit it!”

Benny grinned and flipped the three toggle switches on the master control box he had set up. There was a small hum as power booted through the system, and then the passageway he was in flared brilliantly. Benny let out a low throaty chuckle of satisfaction, placed the master control box down and started heading in Dean’s direction. He floated, pushing himself along rapidly as weightless as a feather.

“The rest of the ship lights are engaged. I repeat, engaged!” Sam’s voice came over the com link and you could hear Chuck beside him say ”Whoa…” as the room they were in flooded with light.

Back on ‘Baby’, standing in the observation deck, Castiel watched intently as Garth’s small EVA dipped around to the other side of the ship. His eyes creased in concentration and he leaned closer. “Fascinating….” He murmured.

It had taken the crew the better part of the week to outfit the Arroway in this manner, scavenging parts from Baby and the remaining EVAs to pull it off. The black hole monsters, or ‘dark souls’ had come after Dean occasionally throughout their endeavor, but they had left the rest of the crew alone. Hence why Dean had been made the bait.

But watching this transpire, Castiel knew that Dean wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to draw the remaining dark souls to the jogging track anyway. He knew because when he had rescued Dean that day, their minds had touched and he had seen what kind of a soul Dean really was. And even though the dark souls were attracted like a beacon to Dean’s devil may care risky behaviours, Castiel knew Dean’s soul shone more brightly than any of his light brethren ever could.

Castiel placed his hand on the glass of the observation deck and frowned, “I should be over there, helping them…Helping him.” He had turned then and rushed off the observation deck.

 

 

—————————————————————-

 

 

Dean rocked back and forth a little inside his space suit boots. He turned to the left, then to the right. So far he was completely alone. “Come on you little sucking sucky suckers…. Here nasty nasty nasties… Come to daddy….” He frowned a moment wondering why he wasn’t being swarmed by the dark souls. The ship was completely flooded with light in every nook and cranny they could find. And every warm body was here on the Arroway. “Everyone ‘cept Cas…” Dean mused. But in the week it had taken them to set this up, the dark souls had never taken notice of Castiel. Dean knew because Dean had been keeping an eye on the new crew member. But while the crew had been working on the Arroway, Castiel had been holed up inside Jimmy’s old room listening to Jimmy’s personal logs. Dean had wandered in one morning to find Castiel reading Jimmy’s books, and had spread out all of Jimmy’s clothes on the floor. The angel had been acquainting himself with the person whose body he now walked around in.

Something moved in Dean’s peripheral vision and he snapped out of his thoughts about Castiel. He turned quickly to see a shadowy form flickering about four and a half meters away from him. It was followed by another, and then another. Dean shifted quickly to look the other direction and saw two more flicker into view.

“So uh…. How many guests do you think we are expecting to this party…?”Dean called out over his com link. “I’ve got five dance partners down here already!”

Chuck answered, “By my calculations there should be two more.”

The first one Dean had seen flickered into view about three meters away, “Thank god these bastards like to slow dance…” He rolled the glow stick a little nervously in his hand, “You guys ready there?”

“We got you Dean, “Sam’s voice came reassuringly over the com link, “Just let us know when all seven are there.”

Dean looked back to the two that were coming up on his right, and saw they had been joined by a third, “I GOT SIX” Dean called out, and then clenched his jaw tight as one of them vanished to reappear less than two meters away from him. “Come on…. Come on….”

That’s when he heard that high pitched whining scream start up. He turned to look to the original three, and two of them yawned their black holes open. The remains of the dead park behind Dean started to be sucked into their gaping holes. He could feel the suction pull on his suit as the debris buffeted past him. Suddenly Dean lost his grip on the glow stick and it tumbled rapidly across the space between them into the closest one’s maw. Its feeble light was snuffed out instantly. Another chorus of the screeching sound came from his other side, and he could feel one of the other dark souls were joining in now. Bits of dirt and dust began to whirl around Dean spattering against the face plate on his helmet.

“DEAN?!” Sam’s voice rang out through the com link, “DEAN!”

Dean crouched down as much as he could against the floor. If he switched on the LEDs covering his suit it might shake them off, but then they would have to start all over again. He couldn’t see how many of them were in the room and he knew if they set things off before all of them were present they may never get it hunted down.

“…Wait!!” Dean barked over his com link, “Not yet!”

And then, surprisingly, there were two boots standing in front of Dean. He looked up to see Castiel standing there, another small glow stick in his hands. He was wearing one of the medical hazmat suits instead of a space suit. The loose plastic fabric shivered wildly around his body as debris whipped past him. He crouched down with Dean and placed his gloved hand on the shoulder of Dean’s space suit. Castiel was saying something, but without a com link Dean couldn’t hear him over the chaos around them.

Suddenly Dean felt a violent jerk, and he looked over his shoulder on the other side to see one of the dark souls latch the edge of its black hole mouth to the back of his suit. The suit shuddered and started to buckle into the thing’s hole. Dean grimaced in pain as he felt something bite into the flesh of his back. Castiel’s hands came up to grab Dean and hold him from being pulled back off his feet. Dean glanced up to see a second dark soul latch onto Castiel’s back in a similar fashion. Castiel griped harder onto Dean and their eyes met.

That joyful warmth that Dean remembered feeling coming from Castiel when they had connected that day was flowing through Castiel’s now human eyes. They weren’t Jimmy’s eyes any longer. The emotion and the tenderness, the determination and the eternalness of them now was all Castiel. Even in this dire moment with both of their bodies being sucked painfully into nothingness, that wondrous sensation between them thrived and glowed. Dean opened his mouth to say something, anything before they were ripped apart.

Instead of words, there was simply abrupt and absolute light.

The huge solar light unit in the center of the room had flared on and submerged the entire room in artificial sunlight. It blasted down through each of the dark souls, covering and searing them. Their forms stiffened and jerked. Then blistering cracks ran riot across them and they shattered. Glistening black shards spat out and showered over Dean and Castiel. And then there was silence.

Dean slumped over on his side. He could feel blood pooling inside his suit, and he could feel warmth and air leaking out of the back. He coughed in pain and smiled weakly at Castiel who was hunched over him. The back of Castiel’s hazmat suit was shredded and frayed, but his skin glowed as it repaired the damage there.

“That was some party huh? …..I had killer dance moves. ….B…Bet you wished I’d stick around for another boogie….Make sure S….Sam takes good care of my ‘Baby’ okay?” Dean chuckled weakly and blood bubbled up past his lips.

“That kind of talk is unacceptable.” Castiel mouthed gently, “I am removing you to your ship now.” Castiel started to lift Dean and Dean cried out in pain. Castiel placed his hand over Dean’s helmet and pressed but then stopped “I… I don’t seem to be able to merge us as before….” Castiel looked confused and distraught. “Dean… I am unable to save you this time.”

There was a loud noise to their left, and a huge access door in the side of the room began to swivel open. In moments it was open fully, and Garth’s EVA sailed into the room. Behind him, Benny floated along, tethered to the back. Benny shot his thrusters as he uncoupled from the tether and glided over to Dean. Benny reached down, shut off Dean’s magnet boots and Dean began to float up off the floor. Benny curled his burly space suited arms around Dean and gave Castiel a wink.

“No worries Angel, let’s get out of here.” Benny glided back to Garth’s EVA and bundled Dean into the back. Castiel followed. When Dean was secured and Castiel and Benny were tethered, Garth turned the EVA around and went back out the way he came.

As they left Benny glanced over at Castiel and his lack of a space suit, “Dun’ need no air huh?”

Castiel gave a small pleased smile to Benny and just shook his head no. Benny opened up into a wide smile, “Son, you’re gonna come in handy around here. How’re you at doctorin’?”

Castiel looked at Dean’s body lying in the back of the EVA, but said nothing. He was too busy digging deep into Jimmy’s brain, tracing the residual chemicals and neurons left there for the information he hoped would save Dean’s life. Castiel felt the inside of his chest clench up with emotion and he idly placed his hand there. He had left his family, the children of the sun, to be with Dean. A flicker of an ancient memory from his time as a human so long ago danced across his consciousness and suddenly….

He had hope.


	16. Stuff

_“Are you sure you’ll be okay on the Arroway? I mean, there is room on the Dragon. You should come with Inias and I.” The shorter man smiled and his hazel eyes were glittering like they always did._

_“I’ll be fine Gabriel.” Castiel turned. He rested one arm on his packed duffel bag and looked at his brother._

_“There are some really fine ladies on the Dragon….”Gabriel’s smile increased and it made his eyes look more playful._

_“The Arroway has a better medical bay. And I’ll get to work alongside Dr Milton. You know how much I respect her work.” Castiel gave his brother a firm serious look, “And don’t say it.”_

_The lewd smirk died on Gabriel’s lips, “Fine.” He took a moment and looked around the dark cabin, “It’s really too bad we are losing the Broca. I liked this ship.”_

_“You just liked having your doctor brother around to check you for STDs for free.” Castiel deadpanned and hoisted his duffel bag against his shoulder._

_“Cassy, I’m hurt.”Gabriel fabricated a pout and then smiled brilliantly. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your shuttle.”_

The memory hazed, and then watered down as if it was a chalk painting on the sidewalk in the rain. Castiel adjusted the med blanket around Dean’s chest and rechecked the IV drip to Dean’s arm. The med lab on ‘Baby’ was lit by just a small portable lamp clamped to the regular domed light that hung over the exam table. Dean was still unconscious, but his vitals were strong. He had suffered tissue damage to his back, and would likely have a sizable scar. But Dean’s vital organs were untouched. Once the bleeding had gotten under control, patching him up hadn’t been too complicated. Now they were just trying to get Dean back from the severe blood loss.

“We were supposed to get together later that week for dinner… I was waiting to tell Gabriel how Dr Milton had tried to kiss me and I was going to use that to remind him how I was gay…But I never had the opportunity. ”Castiel paused talking to Dean. Cas’ voice was still very matter of fact and stoic registering little inflection or emotion, “I have a memory of Jimmy coming out to his family. It is very painful. They were not understanding at all. Which is strange in this age. We used to be very open about it back when I was alive.” Castiel’s brow pulled up and his face shifted slightly with a negative turn to his lips, “Jimmy does have a few good memories Dean. When you wake I’ll tell you about all the nice things he remembered about you.” A light blush dusted Castiel’s cheeks a moment and he dropped his eyes off Dean.

Someone cleared their throat and Castiel looked to the door to see Sam standing there. Sam gave up a gentle smile and walked with an easy gait to stand at Dean’s side opposite from Castiel.

“How’s he doing?” Sam took Dean’s hand into his own.

“His vitals are very strong. The fluid resuscitation with crystalloids and the blood transfusion from you were successful. He’s recovering well from desanguination.” Castiel was seated on a stool and his hands rested casually, clasped in his lap. “He should be awake within the next twenty-four hours.”

“So… Castiel…. Can I ask you something?” Sam turned his head slightly and looked at Cas.

“Of course Sam.” Castiel’s face looked more open somehow without him ever changing the expression on his face.

“You were able to read Jimmy’s brain to get the medical knowledge you needed?” Sam’s genuine curiosity glowed in his face.

“Yes. The information in the human brain is stored chemically and electrically… but I already had medical training during…”Castiel paused, “…. my first human life.”

Sam’s brows lifted slightly, “You remember that?”

“Yes.” Castiel looked down and he brought his hands up, opening them gracefully, “I never really forgot like the others did. But being inside a human body again makes it easier to access those memories.”

“Do you still remember…. “Sam swallowed a little, “…being made of light?”

Castiel brought his eyes up to look directly at Sam. “Of course. I am still a Child of the Sun inside. But I missed being a human. I missed the feel of air in lungs, missed heartbeats. I missed the way the body feels when it moves to music. I missed the sound of voices and laughter.” Castiel’s gaze slipped to Dean a moment and then he looked away, “I missed a lot of things about being human.”

“So you can leave Jimmy’s body when you want to?” Sam had this look on his face like he was digging for some piece of information. He set Dean’s hand down gently.

“I suppose. Possibly. Jimmy’s body would begin to slide into decay however.” Castiel blinked casually. “Why do you ask?”

“Just prepping you for the barrage of questions my brother is going to flood you with when he wakes up. He keeps a mental inventory of what his crew can and can’t do. He’ll want to know if you can reach comet status again and if you can get back into Jimmy’s body once out.” Sam paused and looked at Jimmy pointedly, “Why didn’t you try when Dean was attacked?”

Castiel looked down to his knees and shifted very slightly on his seat. His voice came out a little nervous, “I…. It didn’t occur to me. I’m not accustomed to this state yet and….”

Sam smiled gently, “You panicked and blanked.”

Castiel’s infinitely deep blue eyes came up to meet Sam’s earthy gray green ones. Worry passed over Cas’s face along with remorse. “That is true.”

“It’s okay Castiel. We’ve all been there.” Sam reached across the exam table with his long arms and gave a gentle touch to Castiel’s arm. “Don’t punish yourself over it man. We’ve all been there. It’s okay.” Sam then looked from Castiel to Dean and then back, “You really care about my brother don’t you?”

A real openly nervous color came over Castiel’s face but as soon as it was there, it vanished. He dropped his eyes from Sam’s gaze and then ever so slowly looked at Dean. He said nothing.

Sam just smiled warmly and gave a small knowing chuckle, “Okay. Listen I’ll have Garth bring you something to eat. Have you slept since the thing on the Arroway happened?”

“Food isn’t necessary… and I don’t require sleep.” Castiel looked up at Sam finally, “The benefits of being a comet in a man suit.”

———————————————————————————————————-

An hour later Dean’s eyes opened. His body felt raw all over, and he remembered clearly everything that occurred on the Arroway. The only glow in the room now was from one of the small hand held lamps set on dim and resting on the other exam table. A med blanket covered his body and an IV was shunted into his arm. He turned his head to see someone with their back to him, working quietly at the med lab computer grid.

“Hey…” Dean said softly, his mouth thick and dry. He lifted one hand to reach for Castiel.

Castiel turned back around from the computer grid and a relieved smile crept over his lips. He came over to Dean’s side, bent over and instinctively went to place his hand on Dean’s forehead, but then he dropped it to Dean’s shoulder instead. “Moving around isn’t advised. You lost thirty percent of your blood.”

Dean placed his hand weakly on Castiel’s upper arm, “Sucks to be me.” He said with a faint smile. “I dreamed you were telling me about your brother….I dreamed your voice…..”

“You could hear me then.”Castiel said, not as a question but as a calm statement. “Rest. There will be a great deal of time to talk later.” Cas locked his dark blue eyes on Dean’s jade ones. They remained there, silent, just drinking in the pervasive warmth that generated between the two of them. Dean slid his hand against Castiel’s arm and with all the strength he could muster, gripped Castiel’s sleeve. He pulled uselessly, tugging on Castiel’s shoulder but he never took his eyes off Cas’s. Dean opened his mouth to speak but Castiel gently hushed him saying, “The crew needs their Captain…..”

Dean could feel Castiel’s breath on his face they were so close, “Don’t….” he pulled again, drawing Castiel’s face closer and he willed himself up to meet Castiel’s lips, “Don’t call me Captain.”

 

——————————————————————————————————

 

The next few days passed uneventfully. Several searches of the Arroway turned up no sign of any remaining ‘dark souls’. Once they decided that the ‘dark souls’ were gone, Garth and Sam went about restoring the lights to ‘Baby’ that had been used on the Arroway. Benny kept busy crafting the bungee cord tethers they would use to link the two ships, and Chuck busied himself with making an inventory of all the vehicles and space suits. Dean took on lighter duties by running diagnostics on ‘Baby’s engines to prepare for the journey home and to do a full inspection of the whole ship.

Castiel seemed to merge with the crew in the same way he had merged with Jimmy’s body. He and Sam had spent an evening just sitting and talking up in the observation deck one night trading stories and memories about their lives, their thoughts and their ideas. Benny had asked Castiel for help one afternoon and while they hadn’t said much to each other, Benny apparently decided Castiel was on the level and worthy of trust. Garth began asking Castiel to keep him company while he prepared the crew’s meals, and they had bonded over baking, scrubbing pans and sharing Castiel’s first beer in this lifetime. Sparks came briefly when Chuck had pressed Castiel for all kinds of information at dinner one evening, and hadn’t been satisfied with some of the answers he was given. But by the end of the meal it seemed to have sorted itself out.

Castiel and Dean however seemed to orbit each other like sun and moon when they could. When Castiel would be in the galley helping Garth, Dean would find hundreds of reasons to come in for a snack, or a beer, or to look for something in the kitchen drawers. He would leave after a while, but not before he and Castiel had traded blatant adoring looks. If the crew was eating a meal, Dean and Castiel would sit opposite one another and rarely took their eyes away to look elsewhere. Sam found them one morning on the observation deck just silently standing beside one another and looking out into the vast, their elbows and shoulders aligned and pressed together. And while the crew had decided the two of them were probably sleeping in Dean’s bunk every night, beyond that brief kiss in the med lab, and the occasional bump of shoulders, they hadn’t touched each other.

 

———————————————————————————————————-

 

That didn’t stop Sam from cornering his brother late one evening after dinner to ask about it. He had tugged Dean into the vehicle bay under the false pretext of wanting Dean to look over something on the two man EVA. But then Sam confessed immediately once they were there that he just wanted to talk to him alone.

Puzzled, Dean had just let his hands rest casually on his hips. He had his jumpsuit pulled down around his waist and was wearing a t-shirt with words “The Crystal Method” scrawled across its surface. “So if it’s not the EVA then what?”

Sam rubbed his hands together and then gestured to two of the fuel cell crates for them to sit on, “Well….you and Castiel is what.”

Dean had started to sit but then stopped and looked at Sam, “Okay… no.”

“What? Why?” Sam took one long step and came up closer to his brother, his face imploring, “Dean, you are ‘Mr-Repel-People-At-All-Costs’. You’re the one who is always barking at me not to get attached to anyone because this life is too dangerous. And now you’re…”

“I’m what?!” Dean glared at Sam.

“Fucking our doctor….. again? Making doe eyes at each other across the table at meals…”Sam gestured with his ‘I-have-a-point’ hands and backed it up with his ‘just-try-to-deny-it’ face.

“Cas and I are not fucking.” Well not yet Dean thought internally.

“But you and Jimmy were tearing each other’s suits off all the time.” Sam said flatly.

“That was different. That was Jimmy and he didn’t want anything emotional. It was just sex.” Dean answered with a lot more exasperation in his voice than he intended, “And honestly I didn’t want anything more than sex either until….”

“Until what?” Sam sat down on one of the crates.

Dean moved over and slumped down to sit on a crate opposite Sam, “Until… Cas.”

Sam’s expression softened a little and he took in a slow breath before speaking, “Something more happened that day he pulled you off the Arroway and dropped you on the bridge… didn’t it?”

Dean propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands, “When Cas caught me up to save me from the ‘dark soul’, he didn’t just pick my body up and ghost me to safety. He…”Dean paused trying to find the right words, “He ….merged… with me. Vulcan mind meld, soul convergence, whatever. We were two wholes that became a whole ‘nuther thing.” Dean’s voice dropped, “And Sam it was so beautiful. It was wonderful and exciting and perfect and thrilling and ….”

“And it was love.”Sam finished for him, a gentle knowing smile on his face.

“I guess, maybe?” Dean looked up at his brother, “I just know I have to do right by him now.”

“Out of obligation?” The smile dipped off Sam’s face a bit.

“No, because I want to. Because I want it to be…. I dunno….” Dean paused, “Solid. Clean. Pure.”

Sam nodded in understanding and stood up. He placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder and squeezed lightly, “Man, you’re in it deep….” He gave Dean one more pat on the shoulder and then quietly walked out of the vehicle bay.

Dean sat there thinking a long moment and then finally said, “No shit Sherlock.”


	17. Yes Captain

Dean seated his headset over his ears and adjusted the com link that sat in front of his mouth. He pulled the pilot seat safety straps around himself and clicked them secure. He reached easily over to flick on three consecutive switches, and then he checked the engine read outs in front of him. He pressed a few more buttons and then brought the control pedals up and slipped his feet into their brackets. He clicked his heels down to lock his feet onto them. Then Dean reached for the steering column and settled it between his legs. He flicked a toggle, a switch and then hit several buttons. ‘Baby’ felt like she breathed and purred under him and it made Dean’s eyes shine with happiness. A small smile curved up on the corner of his mouth.

“Ready when you are boss man.” Benny’s deep voice came over the com link through Dean’s headset, “You’ve got the thumbs up from Sam, Garth an’ me.”

“Chuck?” Dean said over his com link but also looked over his shoulder at Chuck sitting at Sam’s NAV SAT console.

“Ready here.” Chuck said his eyes glued to the monitors in front of him.

Dean paused a moment, his smile deepening a little, “Cas?”

“Standing by in the med lab.” Castiel replied in his usual pebbly rumble.

Dean hit one more switch and [music came on through his headset](https://soundcloud.com/thearcher-1/crystal-method-magic-carpet-ride-techno-remix), he adjusted the volume knob on the side and his smile spread even wider, “Okay kids. Let’s do this.” He pushed down with his left foot and brought his right leg up slightly. Baby pushed forward as her engines engaged and thrust forward. He began to guide her forward and then into a wide swinging turn. He could see the Arroway beginning to appear in the bridge windows as he went. He brought ‘Baby’ higher as he circled the Arroway. He could now see Benny, Sam and Garth’s EVAs ready alongside the Arroway.

Dean checked the engine output readings, and then slipped ‘Baby’ sideways slightly as she came around to the other side of the Arroway. He fished tailed her a little more as he came around to pull up directly behind the Arroway. He leveled ‘Baby’ out, hit the back thruster jets and held her in position.

“How do I look?”Dean asked over the com link.

“Shiny as a new penny Dean.” Benny called back from the starboard side of the Arroway.

“Good from here.”Sam replied as he sat in his EVA on the port side.

“Give her a little more room on port side there Dean…” Garth’s voice came over the com link from where he held position at the Arroway’s nose, facing towards both ‘Baby’ and the other ship. “You aren’t dead center yet.”

“Got it.” Dean replied and backed ‘Baby’ up, realigned her with the Arroway and then pushed forward several meters. “How ‘bout now?”

“Super green!” Garth called back.

“Here we come.” Dean pressed the thrusters forward and glided ‘Baby’ over the top of the Arroway. The space between the ships was less than six meters. He killed the engines and she floated the rest of the way forward. When Dean saw Garth flash the lights on his EVA, Dean flipped on the back thrust jets for a half second and then killed them. Baby halted. She was parked neatly over the Arroway. Dean grinned and flipped off the control switches on the steering column. Then he unclipped the foot pedals from his feet and unclasped his safety straps. “On my way to you guys.” He said over his com link and took off his headset and set it on the pilot console. He slid out of the pilot chair and walked over to Chuck.

“And?” Dean placed both his hands on Chuck’s shoulders in a friendly manner.

“It’s all good from here. Everything is stable.”Chuck turned his head and looked up at Dean, “I hope this works.”

“Me too Chuck. Me too.” Dean gave Chuck a quick playful slap on the shoulder and then walked off the bridge.

In between ‘Baby’ and the Arroway, the three EVAs had begun to connect the bungee tethers that were dangling from ‘Baby’s underside. They started from the front of the ships and with painstaking meticulousness worked their way back. They were a quarter of the way in when Dean, tucked in a space suit, dropped down through a bottom hatch to join them.

“Whose suit are you wearing Dean?” Sam eyed his brother suspiciously.

“Not yours.” Dean barked with a smile as he glided over to Benny’s EVA and took up hooking and securing one of the tethers there.

“Not mine either.” Benny warned.

“No.” Dean pointed a finger at Benny.

“Guys, he’s got mine on… what’s the issue?” Chuck called over the com link.

Sam, Benny and Garth all began snickering and laughing out loud. “The issue is that space walks make Dean gassy.” Sam chortled.

“They do not!” Dean growled.

Castiel’s voice spoke dead pan over the com link, “Dean, if you are experiencing gastrointestinal discomfort we should do a lower GI endoscopy when you come back aboard the ship. I’ll have you do a barium swallow as well…..”

The rest of the crew lost themselves in hysterical laughter when Castiel said ‘swallow’ and Dean just grumbled under his breath. He ignored them and focused on the task of coupling the ships together.

Castiel said over the com link, “I don’t understand. Why is everyone laughing?”

 

 

——————————————————————————————————————

 

 

Tethering the ships together worked. The coupling held on the first tesser, and the second and the third. Dean learned there was a small recoil bounce between both ships when they came out of the tesser each time, and he had decided before they did the fourth the crew should inspect the tethers. Sam convinced him to also park for a day and give the crew some recreation time. Dean agreed, they had been working damn hard on this job and some time goofing off couldn’t hurt.

Sam wasted no time in roping Benny into a one on one zero gravity improvisational basket ball game using one of the courts on the Arroway. Garth decided that it was time to find a use for the canned peaches they had left in the galley’s pantry and he asked everyone to stay away from the galley kitchen for a while. Chuck disappeared into the hydroponics garden to tend to the plants and [to listen to music](http://m2compilation.tumblr.com/post/38238678077) for the next few hours.

And Dean wandered the ship looking for Castiel.

Dean found him inside one of the storage rooms, digging through several crates. Castiel was shirtless and his jumpsuit was pulled down past his waist to bunch at his hips. Dean took note of how his pale back gleamed with sweat from work and how it accented the ropey lines of his muscles. Dean rapped on the door to the storage area loud enough for Castiel to hear him.

Castiel turned, and straightened while rubbing the palms of his hands on his thighs. “Oh, Dean. Is it okay that I am in here?”

“This is Jimmy’s storage, which is now yours I guess. So yea.” Dean moved into the room and nudged a crate with his foot, “What are you doing?”

“When I was on the Broca and part of their medical team, I wore a coat….”Castiel looked at Dean while bringing his chin up slightly. “A lab coat. The pockets on these jumpsuits are okay but I miss wearing the coat.”

Dean roamed slowly in between two of the crates to come closer to Castiel, “And you thought that Jimmy might have one?”

“I know he had one. I have a memory of him of packing it away. It reminded him too much of his time at the hospital with Andrew….”Castiel’s chin dipped and his shoulders sagged a little. In the low light of the storage room for a brief moment he looked more like Jimmy than Castiel, “So much sadness in Jimmy’s life…” He said softly then, “I’m not sure what to do with it all. Jimmy’s memories. I don’t feel what he felt, not exactly, but the ghost of it is there with the memories. He didn’t realize he didn’t really love Andrew. Andrew was just comfortable. And then everything with the lab accident… Jimmy blamed himself for all of it. He believed he had caused it. And….”Castiel fumbled with the end of his jumpsuit sleeve that was tied at his hip, “…then all of what happened here…..everything with you….” Red flushed across Castiel’s cheeks.

“So you know about that. You remember it.”Dean darted his eyes to Castiel’s and then moved to stand slightly in front of the doctor.

Castiel was still fiddling with the hem of his jumpsuit sleeve and not looking at Dean. “Yes, sort of. It’s all very primal down deep in Jimmy’s brain. Flashes of images…”red crested more on Castiel’s face, covering his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, “…sounds recorded….echoes of being pressed and shoved…” Castiel swallowed deep in his throat. “The imprint you left on him.”

Dean leaned a little closer, balancing his hand against one of the metal support posts as he dipped a little trying to catch Castiel’s gaze. “But you knew about me an’ Jimmy when we merged. You saw everything, knew everything about me in a flash right?”

“Y…yes.” Castiel kept his eyes down, “It is one thing to see someone’s memory like a snap shot photo image the way I did with you. But…”

Dean pulled in closer, lifting his foot over the crate beside Castiel to plant it firmly between the other man’s boots. “But?” His face was now alongside Castiel’s. If he leaned just a bit more Dean could rest his chin on Castiel’s shoulder.

Castiel’s eyes looked like the deep rich vast of space where a super nova’s faded light just receded into the black. His eyes slipped slide long to look at Dean, and his voice came out a rough whisper, “It’s quite another to remember being on the receiving end of your lust.”

A roguish smile crept across Dean’s lips and he let out a breathy chuckle, “That bad huh?” He turned just a touch to his left and it brushed the ridge of their cheekbones against each other. Castiel had a nice bit of scruff on his chin, very different from Jimmy’s clean shaven skin. Dean could see Castiel’s breath rising and falling, and it was quickening. He could also hear his own heart beat thundering in his ears.

Castiel turned his head more towards Dean and the corners of their mouths were now convergent. “Is that why you want me? To replace him?”

Dean was smiling and going in to place his mouth firmly on Castiel’s until those words brought him up short. The smile died and Dean pushed back away from Castiel. “What? No, of course not.” He looked indignantly at Castiel. “Cas, seriously?! Is that what you think this is about? That I’m hovering around you just to get back into Jimmy’s pants?”

“Well? Aren’t you? “ Castiel’s face came up, pointing his chin out like before and the warm dark blue of his eyes shifted going cold, as if a shield of protection had flipped up inside them.

“Are you kidding me?!”Dean stepped back to the center of the storage room. “Cas I’ve been doing everything I can to get to know you better. I want to know you better….” Dean shoved his hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit, and his face was pained. He looked away from Castiel to one of the open crates. “Look I know I have a rep with the guys, I know in the past it’s always just sex and that’s it. I know you probably saw inside me that I try to keep everything superficial.” Dean’s voice was filled with frustration now, “But now… with you….you…. it’s different……”

Something caught Dean’s eye and he reached into the crate. He grasped hold of a long white lab coat and pulled it free. He shook it out, gripping it by the shoulders. His hard gaze now roamed over the front face of the garment. Then he lowered it and looked at Castiel. His eyes were burning with this earthy green determination. He folded up the lab coat and shoved it under his arm.

“It is different and I’m gonna prove it to you.” He gave a firm nod and then turned and walked through the storage room door way. He paused, looked back and pointed back at Castiel, “Don’t have dinner in the galley tonight. Be up on the observation deck instead.”

Castiel’s face was a mix of confusion and turmoil, “…but….”

“That’s an order!” Dean huffed and then left.

“….yes Captain….”

“……don’t call me Captain!”

 

 

_“…yes Captain.”_


	18. Message in a Bottle

Castiel did as Dean requested. Instead of joining the rest of the crew he made his way instead up to ‘Baby’s roof. He had shed his jumpsuit and boots, showered but left his hair sticking up at odd angles and didn’t shave. He had pulled on some of Jimmy’s clothes from the storage, loose fitting cotton draw string pants and a matching shirt Jimmy had bought at the Bṛhaspati Space colony bazaar on Europa. The cotton was deep indigo and had pale blue curling designs imprinted by the dye. It made Castiel feel relaxed and it reminded him of a trip to India and Asia he had taken with Gabriel and Inias before they had left Earth. Castiel walked barefoot, and was enjoying the textures in the passageway floors and on the stairways against the bottoms of his feet.

When he reached the top of the steps into the observation deck, he was greeted with several surprises. [One was the music playing in the air.](http://youtu.be/qiVXbv6GPDA) The second was the make shift dining table in the center of the observation deck. A fuel cell crate had been up ended, and something flat placed on top of it, and a large swath of pale blue fabric draped over it all. The plates and dinner ware were the standard things the crew always ate off, but in the center was a bundle of the LED lights that had been used to cover the space suits to ward off the ‘dark souls’. On one side of it was a bouquet of parsley in a glass, the bright green of it almost glowed next to the tiny LED lights. Standing next to all that was Dean. He had his hands clasped behind his back, and a huge boyish grin on his face. The simple satisfaction of accomplishing this set up wasn’t hidden on his face.

“Hi.” Dean rocked a little on the balls of his feet and then stepped around the table. He wasn’t in his usual jumpsuit, but instead wore black light weight pants, a black shirt with black Chinese phoenix birds stitched into the design work and he was bare foot as well. He came to Castiel and guided him to a chair at the table.

Castiel paused a moment before he moved and cocked an eyebrow up looking at Dean. Then he followed Dean’s gesture and sat down. Dean took the other seat, his smile still radiant.

Castiel reached over and plucked a piece of the parsley off, “Interesting floral arrangement.”

“Yea well, the few flowers Chuck planted didn’t take in the hydroponics lab. And it was green… and fluffy… and well… “Dean kind of shrugged and his smile pulled a little nervously off kilter.

Just then there were footfalls on the steps and Sam entered with a medium sized beer box balanced on his shoulder. He had a towel draped over his arm and he was wearing an old suit jacket over his jumpsuit. He came up to the table and did a curt bow, “Gentlemen, dinner is served.” A playful smirk danced precariously on his lips but he forced it down and kept a serious face. He set the box on the nearby ledge and then began to remove plates of food from it. He set them on the table and then produced a bottle of wine from within as well. He unscrewed the cap, and then poured the rosy coloured liquid into their glasses. He set the half empty bottle on the table, gave a slight bow, then turned and picked up the box. Then he left the way he had come.

Dean half nervous, half giddy, gestured to the meal. “I don’t know what you like. I mean, I know you don’t need to eat and all but….” He fidgeted with the wine bottle a little. “I don’t even know if this is any good….we’ve had it forever…”

Castiel suppressed his smile, canted his head a little to the side and brought his chin a little forward. He leveled an even gaze at the wine, and then at Dean. “We’ll find out won’t we?” He reached over, took his glass and took a sip. Dean did the same. The wine wasn’t great, but it wasn't so awful you’d need to spit it out.

As they ate, Dean would ask what tasted good to Castiel and what didn’t. They discovered that Castiel didn’t seem to enjoy the squishy brown mushrooms, but he did like the cheese. Neither of them were fond of the processed turkey meat. Garth’s gravy was utilized heavily to get that past their taste buds.

They fell into an easy conversation, laughing together about the food and the wine. Castiel told Dean about his trip to India, and about the time he and Gabriel had gotten lost in Kyoto, Japan. Dean told Castiel about how his Dad used to take he and Sammy to repel between the L4 asteroids near Jupiter. They talked about how space travel had changed since Castiel was first alive and they talked about different things in history that had happened as well. They talked about silly things they had done as kids, and they talked about their teen years. Dean described in great detail his first solo space walk and how magnificent it was since it had been in Saturn’s rings. Castiel told Dean about the rigorous training he had to go through to qualify for ‘Project Argus’ and how he had talked his brothers into joining the expedition. They talked for hours and hours about everything and nothing, long after the wine was gone and the food eaten. 

Finally Dean stood up and offered Castiel his hand. Castiel took it and stood. Dean pulled Castiel away from the table and reached over to touch the controls to the output speakers in the observation deck, “Do you dance?” But he never gave Castiel a chance to answer, instead scooping Castiel into an embrace and turning him quickly across the floor. The music swelled a little around them and Dean, with one hand firmly against Castiel’s back and the other outstretched slightly and clasped to Castiel’s right hand, moved Castiel around the observation deck in time with the music.

Smiling at the surprise on Castiel’s face, Dean brought them close together and rested his cheek against Castiel’s. “My Mom taught me an’ Sam to dance when we were young.”

“Handy….”Castiel gave a small smirk but his eyes gave away how much he was enjoying this. And then there were the butterflies dancing along in his stomach as well.

Very quietly Dean murmured close to Castiel’s ear, “I never did this with Jimmy.”

Castiel replied by holding on tighter to Dean and letting himself be whirled around the observation deck.  


Far away beyond them outside the ship, a nameless galaxy burned and swirled and rejoiced in the brilliant creation and destruction of a hundred stars within its embrace. Gaseous eddies flared and crested in a rainbow of light and colour, weaving through it all like tenebrous ribbons tossed by some lost god. But the two dancing on the observation deck only saw the lights in each other’s eyes.

 ———————————————————————————————

The rest of the trip home was fairly mundane. The hydroponics lab grew green and lush. Garth took up baking pies, much to Dean’s delight. Chuck finished his first manuscript and gave it to Sam to read over. Sam, when not reading, spent his time analyzing the Arroway’s science logs. Benny started sending daily transmissions out to Christina, unsure if they were close enough to be picked up but not caring and sending them anyway. 

Castiel and Dean spent most of their days together. Castiel would assist Dean with various things around the ship, and Dean would spend time in the med lab as Castiel configured the computer grid more to his taste. Occasionally when the ships were paused between tessers, they would join Sam and Benny on the courts on the Arroway for basket ball. Dean took things slow between he and Cas, and while they would trade affectionate gestures, Dean had kept things platonic and taken a lot of cold showers.

Soon they were entering habited space, and Garth was starting to find those stray transmissions he collected floating in the vast where his receiver could pick them up. He was sitting at his console one morning after they had made their next to last tesser when he discovered a familiar voice coming through his com. He was so happily startled by it that he nearly spilled his coffee reaching for the switch for the ship wide broadcast.

“Benny man, get up to the bridge pronto.” Garth smiled, and began to stack and save all the messages with the recognized signature.

A moment later Benny was on the bridge, his face was stoic but his eyes hopeful. “Whatcha got there friend?” He moved to stand beside Garth’s chair. 

“Messages from Christinaaaaaahhhh” Garth tossed a grin back at Benny, and continued gathering the transmissions. 

“Mah girl…” Benny said in a deep rumble that bubbled up from his chest. His blue eyes sparked warm and happy.“Thanks man.” He placed a friendly hand on Garth’s shoulder.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it…” Garth pointed at the list of cued messages on the monitor, “There you go. Just hit that button there…”And showed Benny which button, “And they will all play for you. Hit this button for a pause.”Garth stood up and offered his seat to Benny. “We’ve got about a two hour cool down on the engines before the next tesser, and then we’ll be back in the Kestra system.”

Benny settled into Garth’s chair and gave a grateful smile to his crew mate. “Thank ya.” Garth gave him a thumbs up and started to leave the bridge. Benny pressed the play button and Christina’s face flickered into view on the monitor. Benny frowned. Something wasn’t right. Instead of her sitting in her brightly lit quarters at the University, where ever she was it was dark. Her face was illuminated by a small hand held source, and her eyes looked hollow and frightened.

“Benny baby….I hope you get this.” She glanced behind her quickly and then looked back again. She spoke in hushed tones as if she was in hiding. “Stay away from the University! Stay out of the Kestra system! Go to Earth. Keep your salvage away from…”There was a loud noise behind her and she looked back in fear. Several shadowy shapes moved up behind her and whatever device she was using to record the message was knocked over. Her light source skittered away behind her. All Benny could see now were her feet being lifted off the ground and the sounds of a struggle. He could hear her over the din yelling, “BENNY!….ugh… GET OFF OF ME!!!” The transmission began to crackle and break up but pieces of her voice kept coming through. “….BEWARE…RUN….ROAMEN….CROWLEY….HELP YOU….”

Then the transmission ended. 

Benny stood up quickly and shoved away from the char with such force he nearly snapped it off its mooring. Garth was at his side in a heartbeat, tapping in something on the console and looking hastily over the information on his monitors. Benny just stood back a moment, clenching and unclenching his fists. His expression was blank but fire seethed in his eyes. Their usual mirthful blue was washed out to an icy hard shade.

“Play it back!” Benny commanded in a low harsh growl.

“Hold on big guy… hold on….running a trace on the origin of her transmission first….” Garth’s fingers flew over his keypads. He flicked on the ship wide broadcast and said in an even tone, “Emergency. I repeat, emergency. All crew to the bridge.” He paused to reach for two toggles above him and then bent down over his keypad again. “Come on guys, get your asses up here….like now…”

The air coming out of Benny’s nostrils started to snort like a bull about to charge. He turned and paced to the front of the bridge and stared hard out into the vast.

Sam was the first on the bridge. He spotted Benny first and frowned as he read the burly man’s body language. He drew up alongside Garth but turned to see Chuck, Dean and Castiel come hustling up into the room.

“Everybody grab a view of a monitor while I play this back….Sam, I’m sending a copy over to your console, could you run a spectrum analysis on this?” Garth was still typing furiously on his keypad and pausing only to hit one of the buttons near it as needed. “Okay, here….”

Christina’s message played back over all the monitors on the bridge and the crew could hear what she was saying. Benny stood rooted to his spot, still flexing his fists open and closed. When it was over, Garth played it again, but paused it right after Christina’s feet came into view. Benny turned his head and looked over at Garth.

“There! See?” Garth pointed to the spot just to the side of one of her heels and behind her, “That hatch there?” The light source she had been holding was now shining on a hatch in the background so it could be seen.

Benny walked over to stand beside Garth. His eyes narrowed.“There’s words marking it.”

Garth tapped on his keypad again and the view on the screen zoomed in. The words were blurred a bit but still legible, “That my friends are the code markings used on a starclass Sol system luxury liner.”

Chuck drew closer, “Code markings…can we read them?”

Garth squinted and said, “Titan colossus forty-one…. Isaiah twenty-seven… Livyatan Industries.”

Chuck winced, “Livyatan Industries. That’s one of Crowley’s companies.”

Benny looked at Dean and his eyes were sharp and keen. He and Dean exchanged a nod. Dean drew himself up a little and looked at each of his crew in turn, “Sam? Do you what you can about the spectrum analysis and change our next arrival co-ordinates please. Garth, find out where that transmission came from. Chuck, gather together everything you can find out about Livyatan Industries. Somebody see if we can get a make on the code markings….maybe a specific ship registration. Benny and Cas, follow me.”

Dean turned and marched across the bridge. “We’re getting Christina back.”


	19. The Lotan

It was a Mark 7 starclass Sol system luxury liner and it was sleek and white with an air of genteel elegance. Its registration numbers were painted in Helvetica at a tasteful angle near its nose. Its name was The Lotan. All along its sides were huge beautifully designed observation windows and its running lights caressed down its sides in aesthetically pleasing ways. It was a recreation vessel, designed to chariot the idle rich from planet to planet within a solar system. It was in wide orbit around Calisto as if to afford its passengers a picturesque view of Jupiter.

‘Baby’ was parked not very far away, out of the moon’s orbit but not out of site. The Ellie Arroway was not with her. A shuttle had been sent from the Lotan to ‘Baby’ and had returned with two members of ‘Baby’s crew. They had been led to one of the spacious and beautifully appointed rooms on the interior of the Lotan once they had arrived.

The room was entirely white except for several green potted plants placed about the room. There was a central table with seating and a fully stocked bar along the wall. All of the walls but one was decorated in white pieces of textural art. The undecorated wall had a gloss shine to it and was milky in colour.

Sam and Dean were led in through a door by a young man in a white formal military style suit. He gestured to the bar to imply they could make use of it, and then excused himself and exited. Sam was wearing a dark blue suit jacket, a tan button down shirt, a dark blue sweater vest and tan slacks. Dean was wearing black cargo pants, a black sport jacket and a bright lime green t-shirt that read “Bjork” on it. Sam was carrying a small airtight protective case. Once the young man who brought them had left, Sam set it on the table and surveyed the room. Dean went to the bar and began looking through it.

“Tsk, no beer. Just the hard stuff.” He looked over his shoulder at Sam, “Want anything?”

“Yea,” Sam looked around, “A window. I was hoping we’d meet in one of the rooms with the big view of Jupiter…..gimme a vodka and cranberry.”

Dean smirked and brought out two glasses, “…such a girl….”

The door opposite from the one they had entered opened and four people walked in. The first was a statuesque woman that Sam recognized as Rachel, Crowley’s chief communications liaison. The next to enter was an older man in the same military style uniform as the person who had escorted Sam and Dean in, however his clothing was adorned with several medals and accommodation ribbons. The next person was a tall man in his mid-thirties wearing the standard up-to-date fashionable business suit. He had a plain face and dark brown hair, but his eyes were quick and alert.

The last person to enter looked at Dean at the bar and said, “Pour me a Glencraig while you’re there, if you’d be so kind.” His voice sounded like a mix of roughed up velvet and cigar tobacco being rolled along oiled wood.

Dean’s body went tense and he started to glare at the man, then he calmed himself and reached for the whiskey, “Sure.”

The man was Fergus Roderick Crowley, business man, entrepreneur, inventor and the head of the Historical Preservation Society of Mother Earth. He was a shorter man, stout of stature with baleful wide hazel eyes and an expressive mouth. He was dressed in a long fine wool suit coat that came to just above his knees and button up the front to a high collar. He wore slacks that were made of the same material as the coat and expensive leather shoes. The suit coat reminded Sam vaguely of the priest’s robes from the Capistrano mission on Titan. Crowley walked past the others and took a seat at the table. His demeanor was relaxed and pleasant. The older military man came and sat to Crowley’s right while Rachel and the other man remained standing.

Dean finished preparing the drinks and he brought Sam’s to him first, and then placed Crowley’s on the table near him. Then he and Sam sat at the table opposite.

“So.” Crowley touched his glass, fingered the edge of it a little and then looked directly at the brothers, “You sent word you found the Eleanor Arroway…. ” He raised one eyebrow slightly, “And that you retrieved her. And here you are…..”He drew his glass to him and let it hover at his lips, “But where is she?”He gave Sam and Dean a sharp look before taking a sip of his whiskey.

“We left her here in the solar system. She’s hidden well. Inside this box is an SPT device to track her location. The beacon for it is on the Arroway’s bridge.” Sam opened the case and turned it around to show its contents, which were indeed exactly as he claimed.

The military man stood up enough to get a closer look at the device, and once he had scrutinized it he nodded a confirmation to Crowley. Then he sat back down.

“I see.” Crowley took another drink from his glass. He paused a long moment to look over Sam, noting his body language, how Sam kept his shoulders relaxed but his back ridged. Sam held his hands under the table while semi resting his elbows on the chair’s arm rests. Sam hadn’t touched his drink. Crowley took another swig of his whiskey and sized up Dean. Dean was leaning back with most of his weight shifted to his left. Whatever he had poured for himself was gone now. Dean’s face was stoney and his eyes betrayed some agitated emotion, but a light smirk teased at Dean’s mouth.

“So why the cloak and dagger boys? Why hide the Arroway?” When Crowley said this, he didn’t state it as a regular question, but phrased it more like a detective working a case might express it. Crowley lifted his brow again and put his attention on his drink, “You’ve worked for me before, our business transactions have gone smoothly to the satisfaction of each party involved…. So what’s changed?” Crowley flicked his gaze to Dean and caught Dean’s jaw clench tight. “Hmmm….”

Dean stood, “We want our friend back.” His gaze went hard and accusing and he gave all of it to Crowley.

But instead of amusement or a look of calculation, Crowley suddenly looked bewildered. Genuinely.

Sam stood up beside his brother and placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder as if to say ‘easy brother, something’s not the way we figured it was’, “Our friend, Christina Ronald. Student at Kestra University?”

Crowley’s face was a genuine blank. It was obvious he had no idea what Sam was talking about.

It was then that the man in the business suit behind Crowley stepped around the table and using a small remote device in his hand, pointed it at the milky wall. He pressed a button on it and it came to life as a wall to wall video screen. Showing on that screen now was Christina, bound to a chair, gagged and with an IV in her arm. Her head was rolled slightly to the side and her hands were limp. Her image flickered once and then remained steady.

The man spoke directly to Dean and Sam, a wide grin spread across his face, “Wow, I gotta tell you…. You guys are something else. I am really impressed this time. Gave you bad intel on the Arroway and you still managed to haul it back…. Placed a tracking device in your ship and you cut me off clean. Even knew we… oh sorry…”He glanced at Crowley, “I mean… you even knew I had kidnapped your friend.” The man leaned on the back of one of the empty chairs almost openly laughing, “I must say you really surprised me.”

“And who the fuck are you?!” Dean growled, his posture becoming more antagonistic.

“THAT would be Mr. Richard Roman.”Crowley answered and pushed his glass away from him. Crowley’s eyes had narrowed and his nostrils were flared slightly. “My soon-to-be FORMER business partner, Dick.”

Roman gave a delighted half giggle, “Yes, soon to be former business partner ….” but he ended with a cutting bitter edge to his voice when he was done. “….and original founder of Livyatan Industries!”

Sam leaned closer to Dean and whispered, “Christina’s message… Roamen?” He paused, “Dick Roman.”

Dean’s body flexed and he jerked in the direction towards Roman, as if he would leap across the table and strangled the man.

Rachel swiftly drew something from her pocket and pointed it at Dean. It was an ancient slug thrower, a gun. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Her hand held steady as she cocked the gun making a decidedly threatening ‘ca-click’.

Sam and Dean looked at the weapon Rachel held. It was exactly like the weapon that had shot and killed their father.

“It’s an old Colt. It’s a beauty isn’t it?” Roman winked at Rachel then looked back at Sam and Dean with mirth, “Just too bad you didn’t figure out sooner who shot Daddy huh? Probably could have kept your friend there out of harm’s way.” He chuckled and gestured to Christina who was still visable on the screen, “She’s a pistol that one, let me tell you. She escapes from where we were holding her right off, and when we finally find her, she decks one of my guys. Had to sedate her. Can you imagine?”

Dean just threw Sam a wary look and Sam reciprocated. They looked like either of them could lose their cool at any moment.

“Boys, boys, boys…. No need to get all flustered.” The smile dropped from Roman’s face. “None of you are leaving here…. alive anyway.”

 

——————————————————————————————-

 

Everything in Christina’s vision was hazy and her skull felt as if it were full of water instead of her brains. She brought her head up once and then couldn’t hold it there. The room was small but all white and brightly lit. She was in a white chair in the center and to her left was a small computer grid console. In front of her was a small video com link on the wall, and beside it was a door. The rest of the room was empty. She feebly pulled at the restraints at her wrist but all her energy was sapped. She tried to lift her head straight again but it wouldn’t move.

She was about to closer her eyes when the door opened. A man in a white military style suit walked in and shut the door behind him. He went to the computer grid console, removed a piece of paper from his pocket and began to type something in on the key pad there. He doubled checked the information on the paper against the read out on the computer grid, and then put the paper back in his pocket. Then he came to Christina’s side and examined the IV inserted into her arm.

Christina looked side long at the man, at his dark ruffled hair and his intense dark blue eyes. She blinked once and then frowned. “J…Jimmy?”

The man stilled completely and turned to look at her. “This isn’t Jimmy anymore. I am Castiel.” His voice was not quite Jimmy’s anymore. It was something else. It was something deeper, with a low powered rumble underlying it. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“What’s this ‘we’ business Castiel-sasstiel?” She murmured through her haze, “I only see one skinny white boy here….”

Castiel removed the IV and began to remove her bonds, but just as he was finished with the ones at her wrists the door opened. Another man in white entered the room and looked shocked to see Castiel kneeling beside Christina. But before he could move or say anything, Castiel opened his mouth and a bright golden light poured from it and from his eyes. It covered the man swiftly and the man dropped limp to the ground. Castiel closed his mouth, shut his eyes and the light ceased.

“Whoa.” Christina blinked, “That’s new.”

Castiel worked at undoing the restraints at her ankles, “He is not harmed. I suppose he will have a rather intense headache when he regains consciousness.” Castiel placed an arm under Christina’s arm, wrapping it around her back. He lifted her up out of the chair and then scooped her fully into his arms. He did it so fluidly and with such ease it looked like she weighed nothing to him, “Benny is waiting to take you back to ‘Baby’. He is extremely distressed at this turn of events.”

Christina giggled slightly even as the effects of the drug started to wear off, “You make with the funny talk ……and your hair is very fluffy.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true.” And Castiel carried her out of the room.


	20. Bonuses All Around

Dean nudged his chin up and looked down his nose at Dick Roman, “You know, killing us isn’t going to be that easy….”

The gun fired suddenly, sending noise and light out of its end point. Sam and Dean flinched slightly, their eyes wide and their faces surprised. Rachel cocked the gun again and leveled it at them. The military man beside Crowley at the table slumped over, his face was slack against the table surface. Blood began to spread thick and dark across the table’s surface from the hole in his head. Crowley closed his eyes and flexed the fingers on his right hand.

“Oh I think it is. I think it was easy to drop your Daddy to the ground and it’s going to be even easier to get rid of you two chuckleheads.” Dick Roman grinned and grinned and grinned, “A lot faster to dump your bodies into space however. Which is what we’ll be doing to the three of you.” He straightened his suit, “The bullets this gun fires are pretty hard to come by and if the authorities find bodies floating in space with no marks on them well… investigation will be quick and easy.” He paused to pick up the beacon locator to the Arroway. “Mind you, I’ll empty that gun into any of you that thinks of getting all cute on me.”

Crowley stood up, smooth and confident, “Trust me…Dick…getting cute on you is the last thing on my mind.” He adjusted one or two buttons on his suit and then leveled a calm gaze at his former partner. “Pay off the whole crew here did you?”

“Bonuses all around.” Dick beamed back.

Crowley darted his eyes over to Rachel, looked at Sam and Dean and then placed his attention on Dick again. “Well then. There is no air lock here is there? Two levels above us and one below us…. Exactly how are you going to blow us out into space? Hmmm?”

Rachel pointed the gun at the door Sam and Dean had entered the room at, “Get walking.” Dick Roman nearly giggled as he stepped lively over to stand just behind her.

Crowley rolled his eyes and walked past Sam and Dean to the door. The brothers hesitantly fell in behind him, casting glances over their shoulder at Rachel.

“And don’t worry about your lady friend there…” Dick gestured to the image of Christina still on the view screen, “I have big plans for her.”

 

——————————————————————————————————

 

“I believe looping the image feed on the camera in the room where you were being held was successful.” Castiel spoke, “We are not being followed.”

Castiel was moving swiftly along a corridor lined with sleek doors still holding Christina gingerly in his arms. He was searching along each door for something, focusing his intense eyes on each door opening mechanism.

“Okay so….I’m not sure I follow this….”Christina had one arm draped around Castiel’s shoulder and neck while the other hand pointed randomly in the air, “You look like Jimmy, but you aren’t Jimmy cuz you’re an energy being who used to be a human named Castiel who was alive a billion years ago….”

“No. I said it was a long time ago. Not a billion years.” Castiel corrected her.

“…but you transformed into a small sun that later merged into Jimmy’s dead body but it’s not dead now and you are also a doctor who is also in love with Dean….”Christina kept going.

“I never said I was in love with Dean.” Castiel continued searching.

“Pffft. Please. I can hear it in your voice when you say his name.” She pointed to a door mechanism that had a small bit of orange paper slipped in the seal where it met the wall, “Just like you can hear it in my voice when I say Benny’s name…..Bennyeeeeeeeee” She said it dramatically and then nearly snorted with a laugh.

Castiel set her down in front of the door. He hit the button to open it but left the paper where it was. Beyond it was an observation deck with a spacious window view of Calisto, Jupiter’s banded belly looming beyond that. He moved into the room and walked to one corner where a space suit was waiting in a rumpled heap. He began to pick up the pieces of it into his hands.

Christina wandered over to the observation window and lightly pressed her hand to the glass. “My head is finally starting to clear I think.” She looked back at Castiel, “Where IS Benny anyway?”

Castiel brought the suit over to her and started helping her step into its legs. “Four point two meters to your left and one meter down.”

Christina looked quickly to her left out the observation window. Slowly, like a sun cresting on the horizon of a planet, Benny rose up alongside the widow to float just outside. He was inside the two man EVA and yet he was still wearing his space suit. His eyes were keen and sparkling, but softened when he saw her. A wide grim smile curled over his lips and he winked at her.

“Oh. Okay.” She nudged on the space boots and Castiel locked them in place to the bottom of the legs of the suit. “But….” She looked around quickly and frowned, “There’s no airlock here.”

“You are highly perceptive Christina.”Castiel said frankly as he eased the top of the suit on her and began to close and seal it. “Were you an advanced placement student?”

“Sass-tiel!” Christina scowled at Castiel, “I’m being serious!”

There was a tap at the observation window and Christina looked over at Benny. He had tapped against the window using one of the robotic arms on the EVA. When he had her attention, he pointed to something mounted on the lower front end of the EVA. It was a rather large railgun and it was loaded with hull piercing spikes. The team had used this gun many times to tear holes in the sides of ships they were salvaging.

“You have GOT to be kidding me,” Christina’s eyes went wide as she looked from the gun to Benny, “You can’t be serious….!”

Castiel lifted the suit’s helmet into place over Christina’s head, set it in its seating and then clicked it closed. “I think Dean’s exact words were ‘serious as a fucking heart attack’. We should stand away from the window.” He stepped back himself and over to the side, guiding Christina with him.

“I’m going to have a talk with that boy….”She growled slightly under her breath.

As soon as they were clear of the window, Benny maneuvered the EVA back a bit, and then he opened up the rail gun. It rapidly shot out its spikes to punch a chain of holes into the observation window. The sudden shift in pressure on the widow made it start to crack as all the air in the room spurted out to geyser into space. Benny dropped quickly below the widow as it snapped, warped and then shot straight off the side of the starclass ship with a deafening crack. The bent and hewn window went tumbling away towards Calisto. Not even a tenth of a second later both Christina and Castiel were sucked from the ship and whipped out into the vast.

Benny swung the EVA after them, burning his thrusters full on. He popped open the big back end hatch and raced to place himself in the path of their trajectory. The force had split them apart from each other however. Christina swirled in a spin to Benny’s right while Castiel sailed to his left as if he was chasing after the broken window. Benny moved fast, firing the maneuvering jets in quick bursts. He shifted and then was suddenly lined up in front of Christina. As she spun towards the hatch opening, he tried to began to match her speed. Her suited up body fluttered into the EVA hatch and then bounced into the back of Benny’s seat. He swerved the EVA gently to ricochet her off the interior side of the EVA. She came rolling up and around to where he could grab her with his hand. Snatching hold of her suit’s arm, he twisted and tucked her into the seat beside him.

Breathing hard he looked over at Christina, the adrenaline and fear bright in his eyes, “….Christina! Are you okay love?!”

She blinked a few times, obviously a little dizzy.”Yea… yea….I’m good. Nice to see you.” She placed her hand over her chest, “Whoooo… heart’s goin’ a mile a minute!” Then she let out a relieved giggle and smiled.

Benny put up a hand, “No…no NO. You may not do that again. Ever.” He frowned and turned the EVA in Castiel’s direction.

He sprinted the EVA into place, to line up with Castiel’s path and in a similar move caught Castiel into the back of the EVA and closed the hatch. Christina moved out of the seat she was in to kneel beside Castiel who had landed in a slumped position behind Benny’s seat. His eyes were closed but his mouth hung open. His limbs were limp with a fine sheen of frost covering them.

“He’s not moving….!”Christina called up to Benny, but Benny was already firing all the EVAs thrusters and aiming it back to ‘Baby’.

 

——————————————————————————————————-

 

Rachel had stopped them in front of one of the bulkhead doors. Beyond it was the portside vehicle bay and an airlock chamber. She gestured for Crowley to open the bulkhead door. Crowley gave an annoyed sigh and moved to the mini console beside the bulkhead itself. As he entered the code to open the door, Dean and Sam traded a look to each other.

Dick smirked, “Yes. Please make with the heroics. I really just can’t wait to see what you morons would come up with as an escape plan.”

“I think everything is going okay so far.” Dean made a satisfied face and nodded, “Sam?”

“Right on schedule actually.” Sam mimicked Dean’s expression.

Crowley paused a moment and looked over his shoulder at the two of them. His left eye narrowed slightly and he gave them a curious look. The bulkhead door whisked open beside him.

“They’re bluffing.” Rachel gestured the end of the gun at them.

Dick looked them all over, including Rachel, but his smug smile didn’t fade. “Whatever.” He gestured grandly for them all to step into the vehicle bay and he moved over to the airlock chamber. “At this point it would take an act of God to save them.”

At that moment the ship trembled gently and the emergency alarm went off. The emergency lights winked on and an automated voice announced over the inter ship speakers, “Hull breach. Emergency procedures activated. Hull breach. All non emergency personnel please follow ship protocol E-2. Hull Breach….”it continued to repeat the message.

“Nope, I was wrong. The escape plan is a little early!”Sam stepped towards Dick Roman and swung his fist, connecting with a surprise right hook into Dick’s jaw. It sent the business man sprawling across the floor and the beacon locator sliding over to Crowley.

Dean backhanded the gun from Rachel’s hand and sent it flying in the other direction. He followed it by reaching forward with his left to grab her right upper arm and tucked her against the nearest wall to keep her there. Sam wrestled Dick Roman into a firm hold, one arm wrapped around Dick’s neck while the other gripped around Dick’s chest. With Sam’s height, only one of Dick’s feet was able to touch the ground.

Crowley snatched up the beacon locator and moved quickly back into the corridor they had come from, back to the mini console. He began typing something into the keypad there and looking at the read out, “Observation window blown on this deck. Is that your handy work Winchesters?”

Dean tossed Crowley a bright grin, “Such a shame, kids today with their loud parties.”

“Yes. Well….” Crowley shifted his gaze from Dean back to the mini console.”I’m not fond of dancing to this music.”The emergency announcement ceased and the lights switched back to normal. The alarm also quit its urgent bleat. “Won’t be long before we’re being chaperoned boys. Time to leave.”

There was an abrupt machine whine and the floor of the vehicle bay began to open. A small moon jumper ship rose up from its berth in the floor. As it moved to rest on a launch pad in the bay, Crowley walked briskly to meet it, beacon locator still in hand. “Come along Winchesters. Do please bring your party favors.”

Sam hauled Dick Roman along to follow Crowley and after Dean had retrieved the gun, he pulled Rachel with him as well.

Crowley opened the moon jumper and climbed in, seating himself in one of the passenger chairs. “One of you can fly this thing yes? Or do I need to program the auto-pilot?”

Dean shoved Rachel into the spot beside Crowley and slithered himself into the pilot’s chair. He began priming up the engines and getting the controls online. Sam tossed Dick in opposite Rachel and then took a place himself opposite Crowley. Dean passed the gun to Sam, and Sam tucked it away into his suit coat. The opening on the moon jumper closed and sealed. Behind the moon jumper, men in white military style suits were entering the vehicle bay carrying laser pistols.

“Sooner than later yes?” Crowley said encouragingly to Dean.

Dean’s face was a deathly serious mash of semi-panic and frustration, “The bay doors won’t open. There’s an override!” He reentered the sequence to open the way out, but the doors refused to respond.

Dick sat there and chuckled openly. “What?! I can’t have a few tricks up my sleeve too?” Then he growled, “Of course there’s an override you asshat.”

Just as Dean was processing there were no weapons outfitted to the moon jumper, the bay doors gave a loud groan as if something outside them was pulling on them. Behind the moon jumper, the men in the white suits fled back into the corridor and began to try to close the bulkhead behind them.

The doors groaned again and bowed out away from the moon jumper, their centers were beginning to glow as if heated from the other side.

Dick paled, “What the hell is that…?”

Dean leaned around and looked Dick dead in the eye, “Another Winchester trick up our sleeve….”

The bay doors bent and rumpled and blew out into the vast, their super heated outer shells glowing and melting still as they went pitching over themselves out and away. The atmosphere inside the bay rushed out with a roar, and the still anchored moon jumper shook hard with the force of it. When it quieted, all eyes in the moon jumper widened at what they saw.

Just beyond the brutally ripped open bay exit, a bright golden form throbbed and shined like a tiny sun. Next to it sat an EVA with its heavy duty salvage gear bristling and Garth inside tipping his cowboy hat to the moon jumper.

Dean didn’t wait any longer. He released the anchors on the moon jumper and hit her thrusters, sending the little ship shooting out of the vehicle bay and into space. The EVA fell in behind it, but the golden form zipped comet like to fly just before the nose of the ship. It did a spinning twirl and flared out once brightly.

“Fancy escort you boys have there…”Crowley gave Sam a penetrating look, but when Sam’s eyes shot over to Dean, Crowley raised his brows and his expression shifted to one of curious interest. “Well well well…. Peter Pan has a Tinklerbell after all.”


	21. Watch me as I gravitate

**Part 21: Watch Me as I Gravitate**

[(music: Gorillaz - Feel Good (Stanton Warriors Remix) **  
**](http://youtu.be/Qfl_V6OdsIk)

A kaleidoscope of flickering light and colour flourished over and around the ceiling of the observation deck on ‘Baby’s roof. Occasionally glances of the city spires of Kestra’s University space station would peek in from outside, but mainly the interior of the observation deck was splattered and saturated with pulsing disco lights. They popped and ebbed with the thrumming music filling the space, and gleamed over the dancing bodies there.

Sam dipped and swerved around Garth as Garth danced with two smiling girls. Sam carried two bottled beers in his hands, holding them easily over people’s heads as he navigated through the dancers. Chuck smiled and patted Sam on his shoulder as they passed each other, Chuck shuffling and shaking his hips with the music as he danced with a girl wearing silk flowers in her hair. Sam came up to a dark haired girl nodding to the beat and handed her one of the beers. She grinned and leaned up to give him a smooch on his lips for it. Sam then nudged her out with him to join the other dancers and she went happily.

Nearby Benny leaned against the ledge where the observation deck window seated into the wall, his arms wrapped around Christina’s waist as she leaned her back against him. They were both nodding their heads to the music and each held a half empty beer in their hands. Castiel was leaning on the ledge beside them, his arms folded in front of him and his eyes closed. His shoulders were moving slightly with the music, and his whole demeanor was as if he was completely lost in what he was hearing. Occasionally Benny or Christina would lean over to say something to Castiel, and he’d smile while leaning closer to hear them over the music.

Soon Dean came up the stairs onto the observation deck, his whole body moving with the music. He reached the top and did a short spin of a half turn, then shuffled over towards Benny, Christina and Castiel. He smiled at Benny and Christina, raising his brows in a “hey!” and then his eyes darted to Castiel as the smile shifted to something more mischievous briefly before he looked away.

In Dean’s hand was one of the computer tablets from the bridge. He leaned in to say something to Benny, pointing at something on the computer tablet. He then handed it to Benny, and slid over to Castiel’s side.

“Laughing gas these hazmats, fast cats, Lining them up like ass cracks, Lay these ponies at the track…..It's my chocolate attack….”the music swelled and bumped through the observation deck, bodies moving like a wonderful wave with the beat. “Watch me as I gravitate……….Hahahahahahaa…..”

Benny read what was on the tablet and a wide satisfied smile spread over his face. He handed the tablet to Christina and tightened his arms around her in a quick affectionate squeeze. Christina read what was on the tablet screen and let out a quick laugh, her smiling beaming.

“Windmill, windmill for the land. Turn forever hand in hand…..Take it all in on your stride. It is sticking, faaaaaaalling down…..Love forever love is free…Let's turn forever you and me….Windmill, windmill for the land…..Is everybody in?.....”The beat shoved and traveled right into everyone’s bones.

 

Dean stood next to Castiel, watching him out of the corner of his eyes as the dark tousled head grooved to the music. Dean’s smiled warmed and he let out a small chuckle enjoying seeing Castiel so immersed in the tune. He had turned back to talk to Benny and Christina when he felt Castiel’s hand snaking around his.

Castiel pushed away from the ledge and pulled Dean along with him towards the other dancers. Once there, Castiel swung around in a tight smooth turn on the balls of his feet to face Dean. His eyes still closed, he dropped his hands to Dean’s hips and tugged Dean closer. He pressed their hips together and began to rock and bounce both of them to the music. Dean eyes nearly swooned back into his head as his smile exploded across his face. He reciprocated with his hands on Castiel in kind, and they leaned in to each other more.

Christina broke away from Benny and made her way over to Sam. She handed him the tablet pointing to the screen and then turned back in Benny’s direction. She bounced and grooved back to him then launched herself into his arms when she was near enough. He caught her and a throaty laugh escaped from him. He pulled her close against him in his beefy arms and nuzzled his face into her golden hair.

By then Sam had finished reading the information on the tablet’s screen and had thrown his hands up into the air with a happy “Whoop!” He moved out to the dance floor and passed the tablet to Chuck. Chuck read it and then read it a second time, his mouth wide with delight. Then he passed it to Garth who read it in turn. Garth grinned as he read, and then set the tablet down beside the large cooler of beers.

On the screen of the tablet was a news transmission that read; No More Roaming for Roman! Dick Roman and associates found guilty on multiple charges in scandal of the year. Murder, kidnapping and conspiracy among other charges leveled at former business mogul. Head of the HPS F. Crowley quoted at the end of the trial to be satisfied with verdict…..”

The music shifted and rolled into a different song as the party continued well into the long joyous night. At one point Dean reached over and squeezed Sam’s shoulder, their eyes trading a knowing look about their Dad. Later, drunk and elated, the crew would stumble over to one of the diners on the University station and blunt their hangovers with plates of eggs and real bacon.

And life would be good…… for now.

.  
.  
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.  
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"Dean? What did you do with Jimmy's old lab coat?"

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Supernatural and its original characters and themes are the property of The CW Network. ‘Conact’ and it’s themes and characters are by Carl Sagan and the property of him and his estate.


End file.
